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BL Premium reports that former finance minister Tito Mboweni has conceded that the preventive measures put in place by the government to prevent the looting of resources meant for its response to the Covid-19 pandemic had been insufficient.
During the pandemic there were multiple scandals linked prominent government officials, including former health minister Zweli Mkhize, to misappropriated or misused funds. “All the systems we have in place to protect much-needed resources and prevent looting can only go so far when there are people who seek to manipulate processes to steal public funds,” Mboweni said. Speaking at the Archbishop Thabo Makgoba Development Trust annual lecture on Monday, Mboweni said: “The demands on the fiscus in SA are immense ... particularly in the context of high unemployment and poverty levels. We constantly have to balance the responsibilities to serve and protect the people of our country (in general and particularly the poorer sections of our societies) with our broad objective to grow the economy and the tax base.” Coming out of a nearly four-year term as finance minister, Mboweni added that he felt like a “war veteran” because of the pressures of the position which often involved “leading the fight to protect public resources from abuse and waste”. He commented further as follows: “We are faced with completely broken and dysfunctional municipalities and state-owned enterprises. This frustrates what should be our common objective to grow the economy.”
- Read the full original of the report in the above regard by Thando Maeko at BusinessLive (subscriber access only)
Get other news reports at the SA Labour News home page