Gauteng Premier Panyaza Lesufi has warned officials in his administration to eliminate underspending.
The Premier acknowledged that underspending had been reduced to 1.8 billion, the lowest in 5 years but said he would prefer for his government to spend everything at its disposal.
Lesufi on Thursday received a report of the Gauteng Ethics and Anti Corruption Advisory Council in Johannesburg which showed significant improvements in accountability.
He said it did not make sense for departments to return money to the National Treasury when there are service delivery backlogs.
“We have put systems in place. It’s currently sitting at 1.8 billion and is the lowest in 5 years but I am not happy at all because that’s still a lot of money that could have been spent on the needs of our people,” said Lesufi during a media briefing held shortly after he received the report.
Lesufi said departments and officials cannot cry poverty when confronted with community demands only to return funds to the national government.
“I am sure you are familiar with this, ‘we don’t have money. There’s no budget. That’s what people often say when communities demand services. We say we don’t have funds yet to return so much to the national government. Remember, some of these funds are what is called conditional grants, meant to be spent by us, so it doesn’t make sense that we return this money after it has been given to us. So we are going to have a conversation about this in government,” said the Premier.
The Premier also announced that the provincial government was busy with lifestyle audits of both politicians and officials which he said would help improve accountability.
He promised to report back to the public on reports that his government spent R34 million monthly on rent for various departments.
“Very soon we will release the terms of reference of the investigation into the 34 million rental because we are hogging headlines for wrong reasons. I told the DG that I want the investigation to be completed within 2 months,” said Lesufi.