The Minister of Health in KwaZulu-Natal, Ms. Nomagugu Simelane, has dismissed allegations of corruption in the department as the department owes the institutionNational Health Laboratory Service (NHLS), funding from 2006.
Mrs. Simelane said that they are willing to pay for the blood testing center, the money they owe and she said that the biggest problem they are facing is the lack of budget of the department in the past years. These arethey revealed to Parliament that they are owed R10.9 billion by the various health departments in the country. Of this money the KZN owesR4 billion.
“We will report to the Parliamentary committee every quarter on how far we have gone in reducing the debt of the department. We will also check that since the debt dates back to 2006, whether there is anyone in the department who can be taken into account regarding this debt,” said Ms. Simelane.
He pledged that they are in the process of reducing this debt as they are paying R3 billion.
“This is one of the efforts to reduce the department’s debt and that we are paying it. There are proposals we have made in this institution on the matter of reducing the debt,” continued Ms. Simelane.
In this meeting, it was revealed that the old debt of the provincial department is R2.5 billion, and the current one is R1.3 billion, making the debt to R4 billion.
The report presented by the chief executive officer of the NHLS, Professor Koleka Mlisana, revealed that Gauteng is behind KZN with a debt of R3.2 billion.
Professor Mlisana admitted that there are proposals made by KZN regarding the payment of the debt and they see the department’s efforts to pay.
“Some efforts made by KZN to pay a large part of their debt. We will forward the proposals made by KZN to the board of the institution as well as to the finance committee for discussion,” he said.
Members of Parliament wanted to know the impact on the distribution of needs in the community due to the indebtedness of this institution by the KZN department.
Mrs. Penny Msimango, the head of the health department in the province, said that they are prioritizing to pay for the center and she said that what hits them the most is not being able to pay all the money because of the old debt.
“Almost every month we pay this center about R250 million. The problem we have is that the money in the allocation is not enough and that’s why we can’t just clear all the debt. The delivery of needs to the public in things that affect this center is not interrupted because we owe money because we don’t do other things with its money,” said Mrs. Msimango.
The problem of not having enough money in the health department in the province following the reduction of the budget of different departments, including the education department, is not new.
This decision by the Treasury always hits these departments hard because they are some of the biggest in the country.