Gauteng Health acts to ensure supplier payments within 30 days

The Gauteng Department of Health says it has put measures in place to improve the payment of service providers within 30 days and to reduce the number of invoices that remain unpaid.

The health department’s spokesperson, Motalatale Modiba, says the department has implemented several mitigation measures to address the issue, recognising the significant impact of delayed payments on suppliers, especially on emerging businesses.

“We have been strengthening our processes including our governance systems to ensure that we deal with issues of duplications of invoices. But also that we improve when it comes to the communication with the service providers and where possible, we are able to enter into payment arrangements so that we are able to amicably resolve this,” explains Modiba.

Payment backlog

The Department is facing a significant payment backlog, having failed to settle more than 19 000 invoices within the 30-day period.

According to the Democratic Alliance (DA), the outstanding amount exceeds R1 billion, leaving suppliers of essential goods and services in a risky financial position.

This delay raises concerns as suppliers rely on the payments to cover their operational costs and employee salaries. The party pledges to introduce monthly reporting and monitoring systems to ensure accountability and prompt payment to suppliers.

DA Gauteng spokesperson for Health, Madeleine Hicklin says, “During a recent Health Portfolio Committee meeting, the Public Service Commissioner, Vusumuzi Mavuso, indicated that only 29%, or 16 248 invoices received by the department, were paid within 30 days for the first quarter of 2024/2025. This is on top of the 71% of invoices received by the Gauteng Department of Finance that were not paid by the end of the fourth quarter of the 2023/2024 financial year. This is indicative of the systemic failure and unwillingness of the health department to deal with late payments and the devastating effect this has on service delivery throughout the healthcare system.”