KZN health department owes suppliers over R1.7bn

THE KwaZulu-Natal Health department will have to cancel several projects to pay the R1.7 billion it owes service providers.

- THOBEKA NGEMA and WILLEM PHUNGULA

This was announced by MEC Nomagugu Simelane-Mngadi in a joint media briefing with Premier Thami Ntuli and the executive council yesterday. The MEC confirmed that her department was indeed owing service providers R1.7bn, however, she said her department had started paying service providers especially those who have invoices below R500 000.

She said to avoid the debt accumulating further, her department has decided to cut a certain number of projects which still had to be identified.

The MEC further announced that she had started negotiating with service providers whom the department pays over R500 000 a month to arrange to spread their invoices over two months because the department could not meet the 30-day payment policy.

The debt owed was revealed in a written response to a question by the DA's Tim Brauteseth regarding outstanding payments, where Simelane disclosed that the department's total debts to suppliers stand at R1 740 624 847.03.