Premier Oscar Mabuyane has revealed that the scale of financial misconduct across Eastern Cape provincial departments has run into billions of rands. Despite this, accountability has been negligible, with barely any officials held responsible and disciplinary cases dragging on for years.
Money that should be going towards medicines, roads, schools, housing, and basic services has been diverted by incompetent and corrupt officials with no meaningful consequences.
In response to a parliamentary question from the Democratic Alliance, Premier Mabuyane revealed that, as at September last year, the provincial administration has recorded 1,437 cases of financial misconduct across departments. Of these, 1,182 finalised cases took an average of 387 days to conclude, while 255 cases remain outstanding for an average of 875 days.
The DA believes these figures expose a consequence management system that is plainly failing.
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The most damning part of the Premier’s reply is the scale of finances involved. The figures show that more than R5.1 billion was linked to financial misconduct cases involving irregular expenditure, fruitless and wasteful expenditure, fraud, loss of assets, misuse of government property, and financial non-disclosure.
That amount could fund about 20,000 RDP houses for families in need.
In cases of irregular expenditure alone, 187 cases linked to R908.9 million resulted in warning letters, 52 cases linked to R3.266 billion were condoned, and 119 cases involving R330.7 million were dismissed.
A further 30 cases involving R168.7 million ended with officials resigning before matters were finalised, while 11 cases worth R155.5 million were written off or derecognised.
The pattern is just as alarming in cases of fruitless and wasteful expenditure. Just over R373 thousand was linked to repayments, while 138 cases involving R195.8 million were dismissed, and 71 cases involving R13.3 million were written off.
Even in cases involving fraud, insubordination, and dishonesty, the consequences remain deeply uneven. While some cases resulted in dismissal, others led to warning letters, suspensions, demotions, or resignations before finalisation.
The message this sends is clear: there is no accountability for wrongful action. Officials see that the disciplinary process is slow, inconsistent, and often avoidable.
I will write to the Chairperson of the Standing Committee on Public Accounts, to request that public hearings must be held where Departments will be forced to give full account of every outstanding financial misconduct case across provincial departments, including the age of each case, the disciplinary stage reached, the reasons for delay, and how many implicated officials resigned before matters were finalised.
I will also table a motion in the Legislature demanding urgent consequence management across provincial departments, with fixed deadlines for long-outstanding cases, mandatory reporting on cases where officials resigned before conclusion, and the publication of department-by-department outcomes.
The people of the Eastern Cape deserve leadership that delivers, and a future built on dignity, opportunity and honest government.