Note to Editors: Please find attached English and Afrikaans soundbites by Werner Pretorius MPL and Sesotho soundbite by Jafta Mokoena MPL
The Democratic Alliance (DA) is concerned about the failures of the Office of the Premier (OTP) to adequately manage public funds, as demonstrated in the recent 2024/2025 Annual Financial Statement outcomes report presented by the Auditor General (AG). The OTP received its fifth consecutive qualified audit opinion.
The AG report revealed alarming findings on supply chain and contract oversight within the Office of the Premier, including repeated findings on procurement irregularities.
There are persistent findings of inadequate contract performance measures and monitoring in place, which include goods and services not obtained at reasonable prices, bids not being adjudicated by properly constituted adjudication committees and errors in evaluation leading to contracts being awarded irregularly.
According to the AG’s report, the Office of the Premier incurred R41.2 million in irregular expenditure during the 2024/25 year, a large portion of which stems directly from unlawful procurement practices and defective contract management. These findings confirm, yet again, that the Premier’s office has failed to follow legislation on procurement and contract management, with repeated violations of the PFMA, Treasury Regulations, and departmental SCM procedures. The Office of the Premier now has a R482.2 million closing balance of irregular expenditure that has not been investigated.
The AG has flagged the lack of accountability and the slow pace of consequence management as key contributing factors to the dismal audit outcome. Despite repeated findings and direct corrective measures, the Office of the Premier seemingly ignores the sound implementation thereof.
During October 2024, the DA raised concerns about R5.3 million that was spent on youth programmes during April to June 2024, with the OTP not only depleting the entire R5 million budget of the program within just one quarter, but also overspending on it by close to R300,000.00.
After the written questions by the DA, the matter was referred to the Directorate for Priority Crimes (HAWKS) for investigation, which is ongoing. This is but one example of possible irregularities with contract and supply chain management within the OTP. Several Follow-up questions to obtain specifics on the expenditure have yielded no results, leaving the DA to prepare a PAIA application to obtain access to the records for oversight and accountability purposes.
The DA will continue to expose the poor financial management of the ANC-run provincial government, which undermines service delivery, economic growth, and social development in the Free State. The Office of the Premier should set the tone for all other provincial departments by following a zero-tolerance approach to financial mismanagement.