In preparation for today’s Finance budget debate, I reflected on an excellent book I read many years ago – ‘Choice not Fate’ – by Trevor Manuel, who became South Africa’s first black Finance Minister in 1996, a time when our economy threatened to spiral into a debt trap. It took five years before Manuel could present his first ‘good news’ budget in parliament which he described as a tale of ‘irrevocable and powerful transformation’, a tale of ‘patience and obstinacy …of determination and hope …Of choice, not fate.’
When President Mandela appointed Minister Manuel, some business leaders sneered at his lack of qualifications and experience. When he drove through a tough macro-economic plan in a post-apartheid South Africa, some of his own constituency turned on him. ‘Obstinate and patient’, he saw out the worst until the economy began to turn. Under his stewardship, South Africa entered its longest growth period ever. By 2007, he was the world’s longest serving Finance Minister and, globally, the most respected African Finance Minister.
While the full story is yet to be told, KZN’s Finance MEC, Francois Rodgers has similar qualities as an individual who steadfastly puts principle before politics and is committed to ethical good governance in pursuing a developmental state. As Minister Manuel did 20 years ago, MEC Rodgers is slowly building provincial treasury into the same mean machine that national treasury was before it was stripped out in a shower of corruption that marked nine wasted years.
Like Minister Manuel before him, MEC Rodgers also recognises when he is not the most skilled person in the room and makes sure he fills that room with people who know more than him to benefit from their collective expertise. This is why he, with his extremely capable Head of Department (HOD), is building a team of interns and professionals filled with the same sense of duty to excellence in governance. This has led to a department that has led from the front when it comes to cost containment and innovation.
When KZN’s Government of Provincial Unity (GPU) was installed, the provincial deficit stood at R9bn. In less than one year, it has been cut to R4.5bn. MEC Rodgers then went out to bat for our province and secured the most favourable slice of the equitable share pie KZN has seen in 10 years.
The Legislature passed the 2025 KZN Second Adjustments Appropriation Bill on 25 March. Provincial Treasury suspended just over R20m from the 2024/25 financial year to the 2025/26 financial year, part of which will be used for a Treasury turnaround strategy and the new e-Procurement System. This will save our province money over time and contribute to the building of a capable and ethical state.
One of the critical challenges in government is that most money disappears within the Supply Chain Management (SCM) system due to a lack of tight regulations. This has led to Provincial Treasury assessing a system currently used by the Department of Fisheries. Accordingly, R12m has been shifted from 2024/25 to the 2025/26 financial year. The R12m includes cost-containment protocols that Provincial Treasury will be implementing.
Provincial Treasury envisages that the system will streamline procurement when it comes to value. Current preferential procurement policies will remain unchanged when the system is implemented. The system will also block departments that procure services without the funds to pay service providers, thereby enforcing fiscal discipline within non-compliant departments.
The system will limit manual intervention. It has an audit trail mechanism whereby if an official manually overrides the system and awards a bid to someone other than the system-chosen bidder, a trail will be left and they would have to account for taking that action. Both internal and external auditors will be able to access and examine that audit trail. The system also has a contract management module which will assist in curbing irregular expenditure. A further innovation to be launched by Treasury is a live departmental dashboard to track expenditure which will greatly enhance the oversight functionality of KZN’s Legislature.
All of this will be paid for by projected under-expenditure – the bulk of which comes from the MEC’s office and emanates from cutting unwanted expenditure. This is one of the benefits of reprioritising fees and avoiding spending on non-essential items.
These developments are a mere glimpse of the outstanding work Provincial Treasury is doing as part of its commitment to clean governance. Those political parties that see this department as a threat to their traditional fundraising activities are advised to get out of the way. KZN’s GPU is coming through and it will not be stopped!