The South African Defence & Military Veterans Department compliance on personal protective equipment (PPE) was akin to running a spaza shop, the auditor-general (AG) told MPs on the National Assembly’s Defence & Military Veterans Committee during a virtual sitting. According to a TimesLIVE report, the AG made no adverse findings in other focus areas.
A quarter (R1bn) of the COVID-19 budget for the military was allocated for procurement of PPEs, R849m of which had been spent by September 2020. The AG’s findings were scathing on how the military conducted its business on the procurement and management of PPE.
Among other shortcomings, the AG found that it had no adequate planning on the amount of PPE to be procured; failed to put in place proper control of the inventory system for the receipt, accounting and distribution of PPE; allowed thieving of PPE owing to the improper inventory system; did not always procure PPE at market-related prices as stipulated by National Treasury; disregarded local content threshold requirements; awarded PPE contracts to companies whose tax matters were not in order; and failed to do stock control at its main PPE depot as well as all its regional depots.
[link url="https://www.timeslive.co.za/politics/2021-02-03-ppe-in-the-crosshairs-as-ag-guns-for-militarys-r43bn-covid-allocation/"]Full TimesLIVE report (Open access)[/link]