The National Treasury has refuted allegations that it was withholding information in relation to government departments’ failures to pay service providers.
This after Public Service Commission’s Anele Gxoyiya claimed during a media briefing on Wednesday that the commission could not reflect on the compliance of local and national government departments over the 30-day payment to small, medium, and micro enterprises (SMMEs) due to the Treasury’s “unwillingness” and “seemingly concealing something”.
“The PSC has noted with concern the reluctance by National Treasury to avail information relating to the payment of suppliers.
“The commission will continue to engage the National Treasury to submit the information in the interest of transparency.
“Furthermore, the commission would like to encourage small businesses whose invoices have not been paid by various state institutions to approach the offices of the PSC countrywide for assistance,” said Gxoyiya.
He was unpacking the Quarterly Bulletin, “The Pulse of the Public Service”, which covered the overall number of complaints and grievances handled from April 1 to June 30 this year.
Treasury spokesperson Cleopatra Mosana said details on late or non-payment of suppliers were shared with the PSC and there was no change to information provided except for raw data which they believed would make a meaningful impact when analysed for a specific purpose by the PSC.
Mosana said the Treasury informed the PSC that information in this area would be shared with the department.
According to a Treasury report, as of June, 117 158 invoices were paid after 30 days by national and provincial departments during the first quarter of the 2023/24 financial year, amounting to R11.1 billion.
The number of invoices older than 30 days and not paid by national and provincial departments at the end of June, was 37 577, amounting to R 4.4 billion.
This was a regression of 51% when compared to the first quarter of the 2022/23 financial year which amounted to R4.8 billion.
“The most common reasons provided by both the national and provincial departments for the late and/or non-payment of invoices are interruptions caused by poor internal controls, internal capacity, and budget constraints,” the report read.
Mosana said their mandate as in terms of the Public Finance Management Act (PFMA) provides that the Treasury prescribe treasury norms and standards, enforce, and monitor the implementation of the PFMA including any prescribed norms and standards.
“Since there was a persistent non-compliance in this area, the National Treasury prescribed in terms of section 76 of the PFMA, a Treasury Instruction No. 34 of 2011 requesting institutions to submit exception reports on late/non- payment of supplier’s invoices for the department to be able to monitor and track compliance with this requirement,” she said.
Cape Times