Staff Reporter.
Public Works and Infrastructure Minister, Patricia de Lille, says the department continues to work on paying suppliers on time.
“The department used to have more than 11 500 unpaid invoices over 30 days before the introduction of the Reapatala Tracking System by the Minister, and the Chief Financial Officer and his team, “De Lille said in a statement.
When taking office in June 2019, De Lille made the issue of late payments one of the top priorities, which is being rectified through the Reapatala system.
Reapatala (“we are paying”) is a platform where all invoices of the department are internally received and managed to ensure effective tracking of invoices to be paid timeously.
De Lille said the total number of unpaid invoices for more than 30, 60, 90 and 120 days, as at 15 February 2022, were all zero.
“The issue of late payments was one of the main issues I tackled when I took office in June 2019. At the time, there were 2 084 late payments on a weekly basis on the system, beyond the 30-day stipulated payment period.
“The DPWI and Property Management Trading Entity (PMTE), also under DPWI, handles and pays on average 858 and 11 300 number of invoices on a monthly basis respectively, “De Lille said.
In February 2022, the total amount of invoices paid by DPWI amounted to R874 million, while lease payments made in February 2022 amounted to R375 million. The total paid for invoices and leases for the month of February by DPWI was R1.2 billion.
“I have constantly stressed to the department the importance of paying suppliers on time, emphasising that this was not only a legal duty of the State but also to ensure that we pay suppliers on time, and ensure that they can keep their businesses running and continue creating jobs and contributing to the economy.
“The latest statistics are encouraging… [This] has been a priority for myself and is being meticulously driven under the leadership of DPWI’s Chief Financial Officer.
“I will continue to monitor this matter weekly, as I have been since taking office, to ensure that we at all times pay suppliers on time and resolve any invoice disputes speedily, “the Minister said.
De Lille said his department has also instituted consequence management for officials found responsible for late payments without good reason.
The number of consequence management processes implemented was for 166 invoices involving 180 officials between April 2021 and 28 February 2022.
Meanwhile De Lille said paying leases on a month-to-month basis is irregular and something the Auditor-General found.
She explains that in March 2021 they sent out an advertisement calling on landlords to renew their contracts with the departments.
“Some did come forward, some did not come forward. Then October last year, I instructed the department to stop paying month to month leases as from the 31 of December 2021.”
This decision helped the department to regularise the number of lease signed contracts.
De Lille said some contractors wanted to remain on the month-to-month payment, however, she says this method led to the overpayments.
The minister states this also led to corruption as many were overpaid, “and now that we have put our foot down to say you will no longer milk government with high leases. We spent R500 billion a year on [renting] from the private sector.”
The department started negotiations with all the landlords and had mostly favourable responses.
De Lille reiterated they can no longer be allowed to be overcharged. The public works department paid R875 million to all its service providers in the month of February, De Lille says the system in place is able to detect irregular and prevent irregular expenditure.
Bothongo Property Management Group locked some of its buildings early this week over rent arrears. De Lille says this is illegal and they are turning to the courts on Monday as they were not made aware the buildings would be locked.
“They even denied access to Treasury offices. We will be going to court on an urgent basis to force them to open the building and to force them to come back to the table and charge government reasonable prices.”
The minister added that National Treasury spent at least R1 million on rent and decided to no longer pay this high amount.
De Lille concluded she had engaged with Bothongo Property in the past and they have reached agreements in the past. The landlord claims government owes over R130 million.