Pretoria - The Gauteng Health and Social Development Department has stopped paying salaries to staff who did not avail themselves for verification.
This is part of the department's action plan to address issues identified by the Auditor General's report for the 2008/09 financial year, which found that an amount of R7.1 billion had been paid to staff who no longer worked there.
The Auditor General (AG) found that the department had incurred unauthorised expenditure of over R2 billion as a result of exceeding the budget allocated to it.
Irregular expenditure of over R4 million was incurred as a result of failure to adhere to prescribed procurement processes and there were potentially irrecoverable debts relating to the staff and patient debtors.
Furthermore, the AG was not satisfied about the under expenditure in emergency medical services, health training, as well as the health facilities management programme.
Department MEC Qedani Mahlangu said the department has already put in place an action plan to respond to all the findings.
"We regard the disclaimer as a setback in our efforts to improve management in the department," she said during a media briefing on Thursday.
The plan includes the draft financial management improvement plan, where the department is assisted by the National Department of Health and provincial Department of Treasury to address all the findings.
The department has also embarked on a project to address all asset related issues in the AG's report.
"Implementation of the first phase of the project has commenced and will be completed on 28 February 2011. The rest of the project will be completed by end of March 2012."
A database administrator has been appointed to update patients' fees, where the patient billing system will be adjusted to programme reminders for admitting officers to follow up on outstanding documents.
A task team has also been established and R4 million worth of housing loan guarantees has already been removed from the database.
