Eastern Cape health department’s ‘wasteful’ plan to print hundreds of photos of government officials

27 Jun 2024

It’s been less than a week since Premier Oscar Mabuyane pledged to focus on fixing the failing provincial health department. Now, on the eve of a crucial meeting with Treasury and department officials, the communications director is preparing a tender to replace the portraits of the President, premier and MEC in hundreds of health facilities and administrative offices across the province.

The communications director for the beleaguered and cash-strapped Eastern Cape Department of Health is planning to spend possibly hundreds of thousands of rands to replace the portraits of the President, premier and the health MEC.

On Thursday, Daily Maverick received proof of a request for a tender by communications director Siyanda Manana for a tender to be advertised for “600 framed pictures”. Fifty of these will be of President Cyril Ramaphosa. There will be 200 prints of the National Minister of Health (who hasn’t been appointed yet), 50 of Premier Oscar Mabuyane and 200 of the new MEC for Health, Thandokazi Capa.

According to this internal memo, the portraits will be hung at the department’s head office, “leadership and management complexes”, district hospitals, TB hospitals, psychiatric hospitals, district and sub-district offices, community health centres and clinics.

The memo – not signed by Manana – said the tender would be for framed pictures. Later, he said they would recycle the current frames.

Early on Thursday, when asked about the request for a tender, Manana said, “It is called forward-thinking and cost-saving” – referring to his plan to replace only the photos and not the frames.

He is currently under investigation by the provincial treasury for alleged maladministration in a similar tender issued in 2014. At that time, the cost of frames and photos was R720,000.

Manana refused to answer questions about why, given the extreme financial crisis within the health department, he was continuing with the tender, saying that he hadn’t signed anything.

Messages

However, several health officials provided messages to Daily Maverick that had been sent by Manana. They said: “Dear colleagues, please return the pictures of the previous MEC to my office, Room 409 Dukumbana Building, Bhisho. Also be reminded to take down the pictures of the previous MEC with immediate effect. Pictures can be taken to the District Offices so that the District can deliver them to Bhisho. Institutions that have not returned pictures will not be allocated pictures.”

A second message continued: “Those hospitals that do not have pictures must please indicate. All hospitals are supposed to have the President, Premier, MEC, Minister. Please indicate your name, hospital name, which pictures you require”.

Other senior officials in the provincial government pointed out that there was no need to change the portraits of Mabuyane as he had been re-elected.

By 5pm on Thursday, Manana had sent a document from the Department of International Relations & Cooperation stating: “Official photographs portray our elected leaders: The President, the deputy president, Ministers, Deputy Ministers, Speakers, Premiers and Mayors.

“The official photograph of the President should always be displayed with the official photograph of the deputy president reflecting their constitutional mandate.

“All photographs should be on the same level, frames similar,” the presentation continues.

He also attached a presentation from the Office of Premier Mabuyane stating: “Official photographs should be displayed in the public service offices of directors and upwards as well as at the entrances/reception areas. It is not obligatory to hang photographs of deputy ministers, deputy mayors, speakers and chief whips.

“Photographs of directors-general and municipal managers should not be displayed as they are administrative heads of departments and municipalities and not part of the executive.”

Department in distress

Plans to spend considerable sums on portraits come as the Eastern Cape Department of Health finds itself in dire financial trouble.

It started the year with R4.8-billion in unpaid bills, which included its Telkom account. This led to an emergency plan that had to be implemented for ambulances around the province after Telkom cut its landlines for non-payment.

Read more in Daily Maverick: EC health department to start new financial year with R4.8-billion in unpaid bills

The amount owed to suppliers at the beginning of the financial year in April represented 15% of the R30.1-billion allocated to the health department by the Eastern Cape treasury in this year’s budget.

Most of the money allocated in the budget goes to covering salaries.

The Auditor-General late last year once again flagged the department for “material misstatements” in its financial statements due to “significant internal control deficiencies”.

Read more in Daily Maverick: Budget blues – Beleaguered Eastern Cape Health Department staff asked to donate to CFO’s farewell

A confidential document provided to Daily Maverick also shows that big hospitals in Nelson Mandela Bay are suffering stock-outs of crucial medical supplies, in some cases due to the non-payment of suppliers. The department was asked to comment on this, but has not done so.

These supplies include nappies, syringes, needles, nasogastric tubes, catheters, nebuliser masks, oxygen masks, special plasters, gloves, ECG paper, ECG electrodes, crutches, sterile gauze, blades, spinal needles and oxygen regulators.

Democratic Alliance provincial spokesperson for health Jane Cowley said the plan to print more portraits is “indicative of just how completely out of touch the Eastern Cape Department of Health is with the collapse of health services in our province”.

“Our tertiary hospitals do not even have syringes, needles, gauze, sterile gloves and crutches, but senior management plans to tender for photos of politicians to put up in these broken facilities. This is outrageous.

“I will set a parliamentary question to establish the value of this tender. Patients lie waiting for surgeries because suppliers of critical medical implants and medicines have not been paid, in some cases for more than a year, and the department is factually bankrupt, but shameful mismanagement and malfeasance persist.

“For them, it is clearly more important to curry favour with political leaders than to address the bleeding finances of a department which is in the ICU,” she said.

Daily Maverick is awaiting comment from MEC Capa. DM

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