The lack of consequences for poor performance and transgressions on the part of contractors remains a significant hurdle to tackling South Africa’s service delivery challenges, delegates heard at the Consulting Engineers South Africa Infrastructure Indaba, which took place in November.
Auditor-General of South Africa (AGSA) corporate executive Alice Muller stated that a number of AGSA reports found that the poor performance among contractors also stemmed from a capacity deficit, owing to employment instability and vacancies in key positions.
Finally, slow responses by management teams in dealing with poor performance and transgression further contributed to poor audit outcomes.
She pointed out that the AGSA’s national and provincial audit outcomes 2013/14 report, which was published in November 2014, had found that national and provincial government departments had incurred irregular expenditure of R31.9-billion.
This amount did not include R30.8-billion irregular expenditure disclosed by the Department of Public Works following an investigation of tenders including but not limited to the 2013/14 period.
Muller highlighted that irregular expenditure by local government municipalities amounted to R11.4-billion.
During the period, Muller said municipalities had, through municipal infrastructure grants, been allocated R15.5-billion, but only R13.6-billion was spent.
“What was concerning about this was that only about 46% of the projects, amounting to about R6.2-billion, resulted in the targets being achieved. Less than half the money spent resulted in dealing with service delivery issues,” she highlighted.
The AGSA’s report found irregular expenditure to the tune of about R33-billion for infrastructure projects relating to health and education facilities, as well as human settlement projects.
Muller said the report had found that projects had not been effectively managed and monitored, resulting in additional costs being incurred, significant project delivery delays and new or updated infrastructure having structural defects, as norms and standards had not been adhered to.