Citizen's Special Report

11 CITIZEN’S REPORT I O ON THE FINANCIAL MANAGEMENT OF GOVERNMENT’S COVID-19 INITIATIVES execution without oversight, leadership instability, lack of coordination across government, and poor relations between government departments. The pandemic has amplified and aggravated these weaknesses. Slow progress in getting initiatives off the ground One of the resulting shortcomings has been the very slow progress made with some of the initiatives. For example: Despite the fast-tracked and streamlined procurement processes put in place, less than half of the R140,06 billion in our audit had been spent by 31 August 2020. This increased to around 65% by 30 September 2020. While over R1,7 billion had been made available for support to small businesses, only R308,7 million had been spent by 30 September 2020. Similarly, only R97 million of the R771 million earmarked for the expanded public works programme had been spent by the same date. Payments from the sport, arts and culture fund were also painfully slow. Only 34% of the money budgeted had been paid out by the end of September 2020 to athletes, artists and others in the sector who had been unable to work. Over and above the slow progress made in these and other covid-19 initiatives, our audit teams picked up inefficiencies, quality concerns and financial losses, along with signs of overpricing, unfair processes, the sidestepping of supply chain management legislation as well as abuse and potential fraud. Inefficiencies and the silo effect Government departments tend to operate in silos and this has become glaringly obvious during the covid-19 pandemic. Although the information technology systems across government carry data on almost everyone in the country, this data is not integrated and shared. For example, Home Affairs has data on identity numbers and deceased people, while Sars has data on taxpayers’ earnings. Such information could have been invaluable to the UIF and Sassa in checking if people applying for social grants and other benefits actually qualify for these. Instead, the lack of validation, integration and sharing of data across government platforms resulted in people, including government officials, receiving benefits and grants to which they were not entitled. On the other hand, applicants who were eligible were unfairly rejected as a result of outdated information.