Gauteng MEC for Finance Barbara Creecy revealed in a statement on Friday that the leadership of the Gauteng Department of Finance (GDF) have acknowledged that they have been “ambivalent” about their mandate and direction, and have been “more concerned with their own survival”.

“At a strategic planning session we had last week we agreed that this is going to change. I am now leading a process of role clarification for all staff and I want to assure honourable members that we are going to focus on the service we offer the Gauteng Provincial Government (GPG) and our citizens and not on ourselves,” she told the Gauteng Provincial Legislature during her Budget Vote speech.

Creecy further referenced Gauteng Premier David Makhura’s inaugural State of the Province address last month, in which he described the importance of the “radical” transformation of the State and its governance.

“Makhura spoke about the importance of changing the way those of us who are in the public service relate to the public. He emphasised the importance of reasserting the dictum that we are here to serve the people and not the other way around.”

She added that, during a departmental strategic planning session last week, it was agreed that the functions of forensic and internal audits were “important services” with a central role to play in the fight to promote clean and open government and fight corruption.

“Accordingly, we will ensure that we capacitate these [forensic and internal audit] units properly and give them a clear mandate and concrete plans. In this financial year, R81.7-million has been allocated for these services and we intend to make sure it’s used properly,” she said.

Creecy’s comments come a day after she told a prebudget media briefing that Provincial Treasury and the provincial Department of Transport (DoT) had agreed to pilot an open, transparent tender application process in the current financial year to enhance the openness and transparency of provincial procurement processes.

“We have to reassure citizens of efforts made towards a clean and transparent government,” she said.

TOWNSHIP ECONOMIES
Further outlining the GDF’s areas of focus going forward, Creecy noted that a chief focus of Makhura’s programme of action for the next five years was the revitalisation and mainstreaming of township economies. 

Central to this was the Premier’s vision of ensuring that township enterprises, cooperatives and small, medium-sized and microenterprises produced goods and services for both local and provincial government consumption.

The department would assist smaller entities to register on government service provider databases and meet the often complex regulatory requirements enabling them to do business with government.

“Starting this week, our department, together with the provincial Department of Economic Development, are conducting roadshows in townships. We see this as an important first step in developing a model to move nascent enterprises along the compliance route so that government can, in reality, purchase food, furniture, clothing and other consumables that would give these enterprises access to a reliable market for their products,” she explained.

Registration of these enterprises would also allow the GDF to play a role in monitoring the spend of the provincial government on township enterprises.

According to Creecy, in the previous financial year, the GPG spent R5.7-billion of its R8.9-billion noncapital expenditure, nonpersonnel, discretionary spend on goods and services from 5 773 emerging microenterprises and qualifying small enterprises.  

This represented 64.3% of the total spend on goods and services.

She added that the province would only meaningfully support township enterprises and cooperatives if it “once more” took on the challenge of resolving the payment of service providers within 30 days.

To accelerate the payment of service providers to within a 30-day period, the province was establishing an electronic platform that could be accessed by all current and prospective GPG suppliers, enabling them to send invoices and directly communicate with the Provincial Treasury over nonpayments.

This would also improve the existing invoice and payment tracking system to identify and elevate problem areas for rapid decision-making, as well as assist departments to further simplify their payment and approval processes.

“We will [also] work with the various provincial departments on further simplifying their payment and approval processes, including finding ways to fast-track payments for regular expenditure on things like water, lights, rates, rentals and telephones,” she said.

GAUTENG BROADBAND NETWORK
The GDF would, meanwhile, continue with the roll-out of the Gauteng Broadband Network (GBN), which had been identified as a key mechanism to bring about a “connected government”.

“This strategic investment in broadband will result in a fibre-optic transmission network of 1 600 km across the province. This network will connect all provincial government buildings, including regional satellite offices, hospitals and schools,” she said.

Before the end of the financial year, six core sites would be connected: the Chris Hani Baragwanath Hospital, in Soweto; the Gauteng Department of Finance, in Johannesburg; the Industrial Development Corporation, in Sandton; the West Rand District Offices, in Randfontein; data provider Teraco, in Kempton Park; and Telkom’s government data centre.