Cape Town - The National Treasury has been accused of preventing the provincial Department of Community Safety from achieving 100% of its targets for the 2021/22 financial year.
In its annual report, the provincial department said it achieved 98% of targets in 2021/22, and also obtained its 14th consecutive clean audit outcome.
However, while taking the standing committee on Community Safety through a review of the report, department officials said the National Treasury’s decision to suspend all government procurement stopped the department from achieving all of its targets.
The department said the Treasury decision followed Finance Minister Enoch Godongwana “misreading the Constitutional Court’s judgment on the 2017 preferential procurement regulations, which it had set it aside”.
They said despite the court providing a 12-month window for new regulations to be written, the National Treasury chose to suspend procurement immediately.
In February this year, the Constitutional Court ruled that the 2017 Preferential Procurement Regulations used by government departments to award tenders were discriminatory and unlawful, but did not nullify them – instead giving the State 12 months to fix the issue.
Meanwhile, Godongwana had already warned departments of the risk of being in contempt of court should they advertise tenders under the regulations.
Standing committee on Community Safety chairperson Gillion Bossman (DA) said: “As such, it meant that the department was not able to complete the bid process for contracting a service provider to compile a set of policy briefs needed for the Police Needs and Priorities (PNP) report.”
The PNP report is an important document that forms part of the department’s oversight of the SAPS.
Committee member Ayanda Bans (ANC) said she had noted the risk of limited oversight powers over the Safety Plan, as highlighted by the department in the annual report.
Bans said: “This risk is in line with calls that the ANC has been making since the commencement of the Safety Plan. The provincial government keeps transferring millions to the City, but there are no oversight mechanisms to know what the money is spent on.”
Bans called for the City to appear before the standing committee on a quarterly basis to present performance reports for the Safety Plan, as well as to prepare annual reports.
mwangi.githahu@inl.co.za