Around R2.22 billion was paid to service providers from the Department of Collaborative Governance and Traditional Affairs for which there was no consideration, the auditor general said.

These so-called nonprofit companies must provide equipment and training in the country’s poorest communities where the department is supposed to create temporary work.

On Tuesday the Collaborative Governance and Traditional Affairs Portfolio Committee released a damning report showing the R2.22 billion that the department paid to service providers, but no evidence could be found for services rendered.

The service providers must carry out projects that were instituted when Des van Rooyen was still a minister of cooperative government. It is part of the public works program that provides temporary, part-time work to some around unemployed at local government level.

The department should have submitted its annual report by the end of September last year, but it was only submitted to the portfolio committee on Tuesday evening.

The report states that they cannot make any finding as to the accuracy of the annual report because they were unable to find sufficient supporting evidence for the claims contained therein. The same finding was made about the department in the previous tax year.

At the meeting Tuesday evening, the current minister, Dr. Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma said Dan Metlana Gorbachev Mashitisho’s contract as director general was “shortened” and one of his deputies.

Mashitisho was formerly director general of water and sanitation, but Nomvula Mokonyane, the then minister of the portfolio, removed him from the post in July 2017.

Michal Groenewald, FF Plus member of the committee, wanted to know from Dlamini Zuma who the 13 service providers were that they paid the R2.2 billion to.

“So far, the department has not been able to tell me who they all are. I only have the names of six of the service providers, ”she replied.

Dlamini-Zuma acknowledged in July last year in the National Council of Provinces that the GWP had failed. “There are challenges with the program in its current form. It does not produce meaningful work. It has little effect at the grassroots level. ”

Source: Rapport, Fin24