This as she works to combat corruption and fraud within these units across the provincial government. In recent years, with reports of fruitless expenditure on the rise from the Auditor-General, supply chain units within all levels of government have come into the spotlight, as it is often in these departments where widespread corruption and fraud have taken place. Speaking from the Fourth Raadsaal in Bloemfontein yesterday, where she delivered her office's budget vote speech for the 2019/20 financial year, Ntombela said this vetting process will be done to reduce conflicts of interest that may arise for these managers.

The Free State has in recent months come under scrutiny with the Hawks making a series of arrests at the Dihlabeng, Moqhaka and Maluti-A-Phofung Local Municipalities for alleged flouting of supply chain management processes in these municipalities, thereby once again highlighting rampant corruption in tenders and the supply chain processes in local government.  To illustrate that this happened not just in the Free State but nationally as well, Auditor-General Kimi Makhwetu in his report last month reported that non-compliance with key legislation was found at 92% of the municipalities in South Africa, an increase from 85% in the previous year.

“Municipalities with material compliance findings on supply chain management increased from 72% to 81%. Both these are the highest percentages of non-compliance the AGSA has reported since 2011-12,” Makwetu said.

Meanwhile, Gadija Brown, the MEC of the provincial government's Treasury Department, who also delivered her 2019/20 budget vote speech yesterday, also said her department would focus on intensifying controls and developing staff within the Supply Chain Department. “Moving forward, the department will be focusing on strengthening and capacitating the supply management chain team on contract management, supply chain management, compliance and support,” Brown said. She also added that 50 supply chain practitioners from various municipalities in the Free State have been nominated for an 18-month supply chain programme. Gadija said Treasury hopes that through the knowledge these practitioners will acquire from this course, problems experienced particularly in local government’s supply chain management processes will be reduced.  

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