It took Nelson Mandela Bay mayor Mongameli Bobani’s office more than 46 days to process 40 invoices in October from service providers, in contravention of the Municipal Finance Management Act.
The slow payment prompted acting chief financial officer Jackson Ngcelwane to write to Bobani asking for reasons for the late submission of invoices to his department.
He also highlighted 45 more late payments that were paid 41 days late in October.
Late payment of service providers was highlighted in former finance minister Malusi Gigaba’s speech in February.
In the letter dated December 4, Ngcelwane instructed Bobani to respond by Friday on why there was a delay in processing the invoices.
Ngcelwane told Weekend Post that Bobani had not yet responded to his request and that his directorate was tasked with writing to all departments to ensure service providers were paid within 30 days.
“While the overall average for payment days for your department for September and October is 38 days and 45 days, respectively, from date of receipt of invoice to the approval by the department, consideration must be given to those individual invoices where the payment days are in excess of the allocated 19 days,” Ngcelwane wrote in his letter.
He requested Bobani to address the matter.
“It is not acceptable that there is an average of six weeks’ delay between the date of invoice and the date of receipt of invoice by the municipality,” Ngcelwane wrote.
He said auditor-general Kimi Makwetu had flagged late payment of providers during the 2017-2018 audit process.
“You are to provide detailed reasons for the late payment, what measures are in place to avoid the re-occurrence of late payment and to ensure that payments are made within the contractually agreed period [as well as] what disciplinary actions have been taken against the affected officials,” Ngcelwane wrote.
Municipal spokesperson Mthubanzi Mniki said while it was important for service providers to be paid, it was equally crucial for Bobani’s office to verify all payments.