State | Radio 98.3FM

Patricia De Lille says more needs to be done to ensure people who work for the state don’t do business with the department

Public Works Minister Patricia de Lille has revealed more than 3,700 Public Works employees are doing business with the department.

She said 300 of those employees have their own companies and, in some instances, they had not declared the conflict of interest to the department.

The latest shocking revelations come as the Public Works Department investigates irregular expenditure relating to three state funerals that cost taxpayers a whopping R76 million.

It’s alleged a service provider inflated invoices for the funerals of Winnie Madikizela-Mandela, former minister Zola Skweyiya and former chief of state protocol Billy Modise.

De Lille said more needed to be done to ensure people who work for the state don’t do business with the department.

The state’s salary bill is consuming money that the country needs to keep going, with regular increases while unions are demanding larger portions. Yet the private sector and white people of the country are regularly scapegoated for the country’s problems.

Everyone knows this and the government recognizes it and makes promises to act. Yet nothing good happens. The government’s salary bill currently accounts for 34% of the national budget. This means that R340 out of every R1 000 spent by the government goes towards salaries.

Salaries more than tripled from R154 billion to R518 billion in the period 2006/07 to 2018/19. Government officials earning more than R1 million a year increased from 9,600 to 29,000 during the same period.

Yet, the private sector is regularly lauded as the biggest scapegoat for the ANC’s failures. The private sector is the largest job creator in South Africa, despite huge barriers created largely by
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De Lille reveals over 3,000 Public Works employees do business with department and 300 of those employees have their own companies

State’s salary bill milking state coffers dry, yet Jan Van Riebeeck and whites are regularly chosen as scapegoats for ANC regime failures