Service providers to various North West government departments have suffered a major setback after a breakdown in the Provincial Government’s payment system has resulted in some of them not receiving payments for services rendered. The Premier’s office could not disclose the number of service providers affected but in a statement apologised to the service providers and confirmed that the payment system breakdown was caused by load shedding. The premier’s office also claims to have backup generators, however, the generators have also failed due to power outages, and the power failure that caused the problem happened on Tuesday night. Spokesperson, Brain Setswambung said the provincial government wishes to extend a sincere apology for the inconvenience caused to the service providers as a result of the delay in payments. “The mainframe system shut down following the loadshedding event that we experienced, and this affected the generators. Quite a number of service providers are affected because this will include all government departments,” he said. Setswambung could not say who was responsible for maintaining the generators and admitted that the provincial government needs more backup generators to avoid situations of this nature in the future. “Government does have backup generators and in this instance, it is the backup generator that also shut down abnormally following the loadshedding event, and this is one matter that the government is faced with to make sure that perhaps we increase the number of backup generators to ensure that the situation of this nature is avoided at all costs in future,” he said. The office of the premier said the payment system will be back up and running soon, and service providers may receive payments beginning next week.
