The past financial year was a successful one for the Gauteng Department of Finance (GDF). Indeed GDF achieved key milestones in projects and programmes implemented in line with its mandate of being a custodian of provincial resources, while also providing limited back office support to departments.
The Treasury Division continued with its work to turn around the finances of the province, resulting in the significant improvement in cash flows. This was made possible by improving efficiencies in the process of procuring goods and services, and strengthening financial controls, particularly in the Department of Health.
Specifically we implemented the following measures:
- Ring-fencing conditional grants and infrastructure funds to ensure that suppliers are paid on time.
- Ensured that the age analysis of accruals is 30 days in a given month.
- Ensured that departments operate within the agreed cash forecasts and/or allocations.
- Reduced substantially the unauthorised expenditure.
Furthermore, we worked closely with the Department of Infrastructure Development to enhance infrastructure expenditure. In this regard we developed a joint program to accelerate infrastructure spending to achieve infrastructure service delivery in the province.
“Our effort saw the opening of Berth Gxowa Hospital, and expediting the completion of Zola Hospital. There is remarkable improvement on infrastructure delivery in the province, and we are working towards completely turning the corner for the better,” Gauteng Finance MEC Mandla Nkomfe said during the tabling of the department’s 2011/12 Annual Report at the Legislature today.
GDF is committed to ensuring that local government works better. In the year under review, we continued with efforts to strengthen intergovernmental relations with particular interest to municipal financial management.
Furthermore, the Debt Management Committee established in the 2009/2010 financial year continued to receive great support from both municipalities and provincial departments as a key platform to resolving outstanding government debt owed to municipalities for rates, taxes and services charges.
“We are happy to report that through the Debt Management Committee a total amount of over R1.5 billion has been transferred to municipalities from various departments within the province and these funds are being used to improve the delivery of public services to communities across our province,” Nkomfe said.
Through our Shared Services Division, GDF implemented a variety of Information Communications Technology solutions that would contribute to Gauteng becoming the smart province with a connected government. In this regard, we installed the following:
- Group Update Provider (GUP) servers to numerous government departments and entities. The purpose of these servers was to deploy anti-virus definitions, software patch management upgrades, soft and hardware asset management services.
- Enterprise Resource Planning tools to improve government administrative processes.
- Inventory and asset management solutions at the Department of Community Safety and in the Department of Rural Development and Agriculture.
- An electronic system at the Gauteng Liquor Board for managing Liquor Licensing processes.
Furthermore GDF has moved with the necessary speed in the implementation of Gauteng Provincial Government’s flagship ICT projects.
In terms of the Gauteng Broadband Programme or G-Link, the department appointed Deloitte Consulting to assist with the definition of broadband, implementation of the business case, and its roadmap. This process is almost complete, and we will soon be going to the market to seek implementation partners.
The G-Link Broadband Programme which entails the establishment of a single technology platform for the provision of broadband networks in the province. In addition it will enhance the provincial economy, provide government services, and improve network access and connectivity.
Similarly the GDF is aggressively pursuing GPGs objective of ensuring that every learner in every public school is computer literate and able to browse the Internet by the time they leave school. To this end, more than 708, 000 learners, and 38, 000 educators access and use the GautengOnline network daily. They have GautengOnline User IDs, Passwords and personalised e-Mail addresses.
Enquiries:
John Sukazi
Cell: 083 772 4885
E-mail: john.sukazi@gauteng.gov.za
Desiree Ntshingila
Cell: 072 646 6054
E-mail: desiree.ntshingila@gauteng.gov.za
