Hon Speaker, Cope is appalled by the wasting of more than R2 billion of taxpayers' money by the provincial departments of health and education, as was revealed by the Auditor-General, Mr Terence Nombembe. The Auditor-General's report, with startling findings, after an extensive performance audit of the delivery of infrastructure by the provincial departments of health and education across all nine provinces, was presented to Parliament last week.
The provincial departments did this by awarding tenders to shoddy contractors who could not deliver quality work on time. Most of the contracts were terminated by the departments and handed over to other contractors, which had to be paid more to fix the shoddy workmanship and complete the projects.
The Auditor-General audited 247 projects with a combined value of more than R6,6 billion. The lack of proper planning and ineffective communication processes in both departments have been lambasted in the report. In one case, a school was built on the site of the Mbombela Soccer Stadium. On 19 January 2006, 89% of the contract value had already been paid to the contractor. However, construction was suspended and the school was demolished after it was discovered that it had been built on the stadium site.
Cope calls on the Ministers of Basic Education and of Health to fulfil their constitutional mandates more effectively and to stop the awarding of tenders to cronies and party hacks who lack the capacity to deliver quality infrastructure.