Page 29 - Service Delivery Review

National Development Plan and State Capacity Conference

system. The process starts with the NDP, which sets Worse still, we discovered a widespread failure in the
out the long-term goals of putting South Africa on a accountability value chain. In many cases, ineffective
developmental path to improve citizens’ well-being. monitoring has resulted from a poor control environ-
At the same time, the Medium-Term Strategic Frame- ment, as senior management, internal audit units,
work (MTSF) outlines government’s five-year plan for and audit committees do not detect and prevent
achieving the NDP’s long-term goals through planned misstatements. Similarly, the Executive Authorities,
actions, targets and outcomes. These translate into the Department of Planning, Monitoring and Evalu-
strategic and annual plans and budgets, and gener- ation, Offices of the Premier, Legislatures, and Port-
ate performance information that eventually culmi- folio Committees have been found wanting in terms
nates into annual reports. of support, oversight, accountability and governance.
The net result continues to be under-achievement
As I said, it’s a beautiful system. Yet our yearly and and service delivery failures, which put MTSF targets
multi-year audits of service delivery portfolios and at risk.
coordinating institutions routinely find performance
information that is at variance with government’s What the audits found raises serious questions. How
planning and reporting processes and requirements. can we assess the NDP’s aspirations if the MTSF in-
For example, the audits found NDP aspirations and dicators are missing from key service portfolio APPs?
MTSF targets were either not reflected in Annual Per- Furthermore, we discovered that the quality of the
formance Plans (APPs) or had poorly constructed in- indicators does not always correspond to the depart-
dicators, along with the following flaws: ments’ mandates. In other words, if the indicators
in the NDP and the MTSF are missing or ill-defined
• Key functions for which the auditee is re- within the APP, how does one achieve what one can’t
sponsible have not been planned for or re- measure? Many auditees tended to be input-driven
ported on. instead of outcome- or output-driven. It would, for
example, measure the number of meetings the de-
• Indicators are either activity-based or irrel- partment held - they are not talking about the impact
evant, and annual targets are set too low we want to see on the ground.
to allow for the achievement of multi-year
goals. Infrastructure delivery - a scarcity of project man-
agement know-how
• Limited, inconsistent service delivery plan- The MTSF targets for infrastructure delivery are the
ning and reporting across provinces for ser-
vice delivery. second topic of discussion in the NDP’s ten-year re-
view. Most of us understand the importance of infra-
structure investment because its case has been well
Specifically, a sample of auditees found omissions in presented. For example, one of the goals of the NDP
key MTSF indicators in the plans that departments is to leverage infrastructure-building spending, as
are responsible for carrying out. Regarding the MTSF this could potentially spark economic growth, create
target to eradicate the bucket sanitation system, many jobs, and reduce the high unemployment rate.
there were no indicators among auditees in the wa- Yet, as we audited infrastructure projects year after
ter and sanitation service portfolio. In the education year, we discovered unmitigated deficiencies in the
sector, only four out of nine auditees had included infrastructure building space. Most of these concern-
the MTSF indicators for ensuring that Grades 6 and ing flaws in the project management of critical infra-
9 learners had access to Mathematics and English structure projects, as highlighted below:
first additional language textbooks. As for the target
that would ensure that government-owned land par- • Inadequate assessment of needs and proj-
cels get released towards special transformation and ect planning.
special justice, only two indicators out of ten auditees
in the public works sector had indicators for this re- • Contractors who are unable to complete the
work.
sponsibility. Similarly, only two out of ten auditees in
the human settlements sector had the registration of • Ineffective monitoring of project milestones
title deeds as indicators for the relevant MTSF target. and work quality.

Naturally, poor planning results in ineffective report- • Intergovernmental coordination and collab-
ing and accountability processes, with key service oration have failed.
delivery portfolios submitting poor-quality perfor-
mance reports for auditing. Moreover, there are cases • Contractors underperform without conse-
where auditees have overstated their achievements quence.
by as much as 40%, using incorrect data or without • Contractors who are not paid on time or are
providing evidence to back their reports. Or instances overpaid.
where all or most allocated budgets have been spent,
but the annual target has not been achieved.

SERVICE DELIVERY REVIEW | Volume 15. No. 3 of 2023 29