/ 14 January 2010

Food supplier targets Gauteng govt over non-payment

A supplier to Gauteng’s hospitals is to sue the Gauteng Shared Services Centre (GSSC) — the administrative agency of the Gauteng government — for non-payment, dating back two years.

Midlands Meat Contractors supplies meat to hospitals including Charlotte Maxeke Johannesburg Academic Hospital, Steve Biko Academic Hospital, Tambo Memorial Hospital, Rahima Moosa Mother and Child Hospital and Kalafong Hospital.

“Our account is overdue and we have handed the case over to lawyers for legal action,” Piet Snyman, director of parent company Midlands Group, told the Mail & Guardian on Thursday.

It claims that it is owed R1 497 000 by the Gauteng health department, which pays suppliers through the GSSC.

This comes at a delicate time for the GSSC, whose future is unclear after a range of major administrative problems in the past few years. The Gauteng provincial government said on Tuesday that it would make a decision on whether or not to shut down the GSSC after a task team appointed to review the centre’s operations had made its recommendations.

Simon Zwane, spokesperson for the Gauteng department of health, said that the department was unaware of the imminent lawsuit, but added that it was possible that the department could owe Midlands Meat the amount claimed. “We called a meeting in December with all our service providers and [gave] an undertaking that we will pay, and are committed to paying them as soon as our cash flow improves,” Zwane told the M&G.

According to Jack Bloom, health spokesperson for the Democratic Alliance, “The Gauteng premier [Nomvula Mokonyane] is going to be severely embarrassed as a judgment against her will mean that the company can attach government property if payment is still not made — many other companies have not been paid large amounts despite all the promises that have been made. They mostly blame the GSSC for not getting the paper work sorted out.”

Last year, the M&G reported that Gauteng’s hospitals were in a crisis after suppliers of food and medical necessities cut off deliveries because of non-payment. Hospitals could not pay suppliers for basic necessities like electricity, blood and bread.