The Premier of Eastern Cape has stated that the province will no longer allow public servants to trade with the government. This is in line with proposed legislation tabled by the Democratic Alliance in the provincial legislature in November last year.
The DA over a long period of time has been promoting this policy shift in terms of our agenda of accountability. Last year in November Bobby Stevenson MPL tabled private members’ legislation, the Eastern Cape Business Interests of Employees Procurement Bill to this effect in the Eastern Cape Legislature.
The ANC support for our position is a step forward to rooting out corruption in this province. Let’s move speedily madam Premier and clean up this province.
The former Superintendent-General of Education, prof. Harry Nengwekhulu, stated last year that 90% of the senior management of the department was trading with the province. There is no doubt that the fight for control of the Education Department is really about a fight to control the R6,2 billion in tenders for the eradication of mud schools.
It was also reported last year that 12 000 of the Health Department’s officials were trading with the department and R800 million was lost to corruption.
Stevenson's Private Members’ Bill provides that an entity that does business with the province must provide an affidavit disclosing any business interest that an employee or family member of the employee has in a business entity. An employee may not have business interests in any entity conducting business with the province if that employee controls more than 5% of the interest of that entity.
The capital and goods and services expenditure for the province exceeds R13 billion. It is estimated that at least 20% of this is lost through overpricing, maladministration, and corruption and this amounts to more than the annual budgets of most departments.
In a province with massive poverty and infrastructural backlogs where people are hungry for jobs we cannot waste a single cent on corruption. This legislation to ban civil servants doing business with the province needs to be passed as soon as possible. The DA will continue to vigorously pursue this matter.
From Press Statement by Bobby Stevenson, MPL.
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