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AN ENTREPRENEUR whose business provided transport services to the Gauteng health department has come forward to complain about the department’s failure to pay for its services.
Gauteng business owner Vorster Rasodi says his company, Dikolobedi Transport, had to endure payment delays from the Gauteng health department for 12 years, and has had to close down.
This follows the high-profile closure in July of construction group Sanyati, which was also brought down by government payment failures.
Many small businesses that provide services to the government cannot carry the burden of not being paid, threatening the health of South Africa’s industrial sector and putting in jeopardy much-needed jobs.
Mr Rasodi and the Democratic Alliance (DA) handed over a memorandum to the Gauteng health department on Friday, demanding the department "pay all of its service providers the right amount, on time, all the time".
According to DA, the provincial health department owes Mr Rasodi an estimated R100,000.
Dikolobedi Transport, which transported medicines for the department, had to close down, partially as a result of local government’s failure to pay for the services it provided, Mr Rasodi said at the department.
"I started this business in 1997, delivering medical supplies for northern Gauteng. They purposefully failed to pay me and I believe that they aimed to let me down. I have come to the department many times about this and they have not helped," Mr Rasodi said.
He said he had "a suitcase full" of invoices for payment from lawyers, but claimed that lawyers whom he asked for assistance were bribed out of handling his case by the department.
DA health spokesman Jack Bloom said business owners who were in this predicament did not disclose it openly, as they were intimidated.
"People whose businesses are being hurt by this practice are scared of disclosing their names because they don’t want to lose contracts," he said.
Mr Rasodi and the DA submitted the memorandum to the department’s head of stakeholder engagements, Themba Kunene, who said an interim report on the matter would be sent to DA spokesman Mmusi Maimane by Monday and that a preliminary investigation would be launched.
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