Consulting Engineers South Africa (CESA) says it is concerned with the 75% increase in irregular municipal expenditure reported by the Auditor General in its recent report.

The organisation says it acknowledges the significant effort made by Municipalities in 2016-17 to identify and transparently report on irregular expenditure incurred in previous years, but it believes there is still a lot to be done.

“We believe that the main reason for the increase in irregular expenditure is the continued non-compliance with supply chain management regulations and lack of consequences for mis-management thereof,” explains CESA CEO Chris Campbell.

Taking accountability for the SIPDM

He adds that CESA believes that National Treasury’s Standard for Infrastructure Procurement and Delivery Management (SIPDM) is the model for Infrastructure delivery that should be implemented by all spheres of Government to ensure compliance and adherence to best practice but that someone needs to take ownership and be accountable for it.

Campbell says that they are alarmed that since the adoption and implementation of this procurement system there is still no Infrastructure Directorate at National Treasury that is taking ownership and accountability for the implementation and monitoring of compliance with this Standard.

Lack of skills needs to be addressed

“There are no in-house Infrastructure specialists in either the offices of the Chief Procurement Officer or that of Auditor General,” he notes.

“The lack of appropriate skills in both these departments needs to be addressed urgently if the ‘Value for Money’ consideration of an annual R300-Billion spent on infrastructure is to materialise. This becomes all the more imperative with the significantly reduced budget available for infrastructure development.” concludes Campbell.