Peter Dickson
Battered by bureaucratic bungling, the Eastern Cape government discovered this week that its expenditure has been technically illegal for the past six months.
Owing to an “oversight” by Premier Makhenkesi Stofile, its 1998/99 provincial budget remains unpublished in the provincial Government Gazette, which is in contravention of the Constitution,
In reply to a question by Democratic Party provincial leader Eddie Trent, Enoch Godongwana, Eastern Cape finance and expenditure MEC, also admitted Bisho owes the government printer about R11-million.
Godongwana told Trent that the premier’s office, which is responsible for all primary legislation – Bills and the budget – had not gazetted the 1998/99 Appropriation Bill, the Interim Appropriation, and the Second Adjustment Estimate.
The last two pieces of legislation were both signed by Stofile on April 3, Godongwana said.
The Constitution stipulates that any Bill signed by the premier “must be published promptly and takes effect when published or on a date determined in terms of the Act”.
But, said Godongwana, “it appears there was an oversight in the processes within the premier’s office” and the Bills were not gazetted. This was “not consistent with constitutional requirements”, the MEC added, thus making all government expenditure since April technically illegal.
But Bisho was also in a bind with the provincial gazette publisher, the government printer, owing its Pretoria office R6-million and its Umtata office R4,5-million, he said.
An angry Trent said the disclosure “seriously questioned” Stofile’s frequent promises of administrative efficiency and was “incompetence” the people of the province could no longer endure.
Trent, deputy chair of the legislature’s finance committee, said: “He [Stofile] and his entire administration have spent billions of rands of the taxpayers’ money illegally. This fundamental oversight on his part makes a mockery of the government’s accountability.
“On the one hand, the finance committee is attempting to crack down on accounting officials who are guilty of incurring unauthorised expenditure. On the other, the premier’s oversight in this matter pronounces him guilty of effectively rendering his entire budget unauthorised.”
Trent said Stofile’s administration was no better than its predecessor and the African National Congress had “betrayed” its electorate.