By Neelam Rahim

The country’s health system is under scrutiny, with a News24 investigation indicating that corruption at just one hospital, Tembisa in Gauteng, ran into hundreds of millions of rands. Prof Alex van den Heever of Wits school of governance writes that how South Africa’s health sector is governed leaves hospitals exposed to corruption. Hospital chief executive officers are political appointments, and so are the people at the accountability bodies and regulators such as the Office of Health Standards Compliance.

In an interview with Radio Islam International, Professor Alex Van Den Heever said there is a vast difference between the Western Cape which appears not to have any systematic corruption. In the other provinces, there is a clear demonstration of what’s happening and widespread.

According to Prof Alex, 3 to 3,5 per cent of the budget is an irregular expenditure, and The entire amount is of the portion that isn’t salary and wages.

He says what is seen now in the case of the Tembisa hospital is a very blatant example in which information is surfacing about what the person from supply chain management discovered within the hospital before she was assassinated. She identified these problematic contracts. After that, she advised her superiors, and within a week, she was killed.

These political appointments are not just of incompetent people; in the main, they are corrupt—a combination of incompetence and corruption results in the consequences we see.

You’ve got two effects. One is that people have been corrupt, effectively allowing money to be stolen from the state. The second is that the people appointed don’t care about whether or not the hospital functions well, he added.

“We have widespread failures of performance across the public system.”

Prof Alex tells Radio Islam that changing the ruling party is the only way to change this. We have got to have a government willing to introduce proper governance structures that ensure performance orientation in hospitals and public administrations.

Listen to the interview on Radio Islam’s podcast below.