Telkom pulls plug on Bhisho
Bhisho’s Health Department headquarters have had their telephone lines cut thanks to the department’s unpaid Telkom bill of more than R23 million, reports Ntando Makhubu.
Unlike phones at the Dukumbana Building, the rest of the province’s health centres were saved from getting cut off while the telephone company and department negotiated how the massive bill will be paid.
“We have no money; we are in the red and cannot pay all our creditors,” departmental spokesperson Sizwe Kupelo admitted yesterday, before adding: “All other public health facilities do have functioning telephone lines.”
Kupelo said not only did the Health Department owe Telkom R23m, they owed a further R180m to other service providers.
Kupelo said the debts would be settled in the new financial year.
Despite declaring themselves R1.8 billion in the red, opposition parties and other health stakeholders yesterday came down on the department, blaming it for failing to prioritise and instead wasting money meant to service the public.
“This is an embarrassment and stands in the way of building a relationship with our community and possible investors,” Democratic Alliance health spokesperson Pine Pienaar said.
The South South African National Civic Organisation (Sanco) said they were shocked at the cutting off of such a critical service, which put people’s lives at risk.
Grahamstown-based government watchdog Public Service Accountability Monitor (PSAM) said this spoke of the failure of the monitoring of expenditure by both the department andTreasury.
The United Democratic Movement’s provincial leader Max Mhlati said it was unacceptable that they could get to a stage where the service had to be cut off.
“They have no financial control measures. For Telkom to cut it off means it is months and months of non-payments,” he said.
Kupelo explained that essential services had not been affected by their cash crisis.
“We are continuing to pay for drugs and other services.”
He appealed to service providers not to put the lives of the public at risk.
29 Comments Already, Leave Yours Too
The SG must fire the Chief Financial Officer of that department for this. The only priority in that Department is tenders only.
“He appealed to service providers not to put the lives of the public at risk”. This is nonsense what about people who are employed by Telkom and its business. Kupelo must not be defensive on this matter it is very serious. The heads must roll, SG.
Maybe they can upgrade from the drums and use the cleft stick method???
The pony express will not work, because that will get robbed.
Imagine how many mouths half of that money would feed.What a disgrace.It only proves just how completely useless they actually are.Just as a matter of interest I wonder what the Mayors office telephone bill is ??
Khanyiso, blacks are allways mentioned because they are useless. Whites at least pay their telephone accounts.
It is just unbelievable that a Goverment Dept cannot pay for services. More like are to useless to pay for it. And that Dept are run by blacks, not whites.
Funny that no black man has ever been put in charge of the reciever of revenue or Dept of Finance, even by the ANC.
We are now a Zimbabwe.
This dept hasn’t paid their suppliers which in turn means that suppliers cannot pay salaries. The depts attitude is tough luck we didn’t plan yet again and we are not going to pay you. Imagine if I had to say that to the companies I owe money to. The same thing happened last year where suppliers were told there would be no payments for goods and services supplied.
Telkom is big enough to just cut their lines but what about the rest of us who have no choice but to sit and wait months for our money. This dept should be ashamed because they keep on making the same mistakes again, and again and again.
@Future, that money will only feed one mouth, Julius malema. Then he will come back for more, crying that he is still hungry.
@ Khanyiso. No you black people just dont get off your asses and work!!! thats the problem. Stop blaming apartheid, that ended long time ago. In fact it works in reverse these days thats why Malema gets tenders and not me!!!
Apartheid is dead. RIP. Unfortunately the african blacks are too used to handouts and that is all that they know. Government HAS to be more accountable. Put the whites back in top positions.
@Khanyiso – firstly it’s “riches”, not “reaches”. Secondly, get your nose out of the history books and look what’s happening around you – NOW is the time you should be very very worried about the situation in our country – not about what happened 200 years ago!
Yes, you fought for what you wanted, and you got it, now it’s not working so what else can you do but blame the white man for your total incompetence. Please, for your own sake, don’t brainwash your children the way you’ve been brainwashed.
Khanyiso, when my forefathers came to Africa there was no money to steal. You guys were happy to accept beads and mirrors as a barter.
There were no gold mines, thriving industry or anything.
You still pulled sleighs as you have not even heard of the wheel yet.
So wake up dude and stop blaming aparthied for your own misearble excistence where the Govt you voted in are now stealing your money and having fat lifestyles. They cannot even pay the Govt accounts.
It is allways so funny. Every defender of the black peoples problems whine on about apartheid and the injustice of it all.
Not one has stood up and said “Okay, we are having problems, but we are working hard to fix it. By the sweat of our brow we will pull this country right. We were made to suffer, but all was not in vain. We have a beautifull country for which we now will work hard and show the white man we are superior to them”
Not one such argument.
WHO CARES !!!!
Just another ….. in a very very long and endless list. The ANC/Dpt/Bisho/BCM don’t do anything anyway – besides stuffing their faces with nando’s and drink johnny walker blue.
WHO CARES !
@ Khanyiso. Yawn ………. same old, same old ………
Nkosi sikele liAfrika, maluphakanyisu phondo lwayo, yiva imithandazo yethu, nkosi sikelela thina lusapho lwayo.
I love South Afrika.
Literate people why waste your time with people like Khanyiso our new SA what ever this country is only going backwards as many like Khanyiso are stuck in our country history and not futue that is why they will stay Illiterate. And bra Julias i live to my word should i get immunity like our world so called diplomats i will shut you up with a 50cal bullet for free and same goes for monkeygabie in zim. In Zim im a war veteran dude you only 18 you were not even a though at the time of the war. Point Made Illiterate ass*ole. so when you guys wanna reply to idiots like Khanyiso remember what i just said.
O one thing they are qualified in is getting hand stuck in a kookiejar when they get top positions and you wonder why we fight for this not to happen.So many businesses would go bankrupt in a week.watch the news its all over.
“He [the Dept spokesperson] appealed to service providers not to put the lives of the public at risk”… Who is really putting the lives of the public at risk? Telkom? I don’t think so.
@sickofnewSA, you should be happy you are still sick, you would most probably be dead in the apartheid era (black ofcoz).
I say fire the incompetent hospital mgnt.
luzman, check your statistics. See how few black people died under apartheid. Then check some of the genocide stats of Africa, (including the matabele hit squad deaths in Zim) under black rule. Then get back to me.
They should have cut the account when 30days in arrears. Why wait until its in the millions????? Good grief, i am overdue by a few rands and they cut my account.
So they are in essence bankrupt.Well down you bunch of morons.The minister and his merry bunch of prawns should all be fired for mismanagement….You useless goats.
You are busy running this country into the ground.Go and burn in H@##$3ll
Kanyiso..
Hawu, you iz naughtie.
The only reason you people don’t pay your bills is that you are corrupt and stupid. White people earn their salaries and pay their bills with them.
You people thieve, embezzle and mismanage anything you touch, then blame apartheid when it gets mentioned.
The world is laughing at people like you.
You need someone to twist the peppercorns above your ear and tell you, “YOU, You stooopid!”
I agree whole heartedly with GR8. when your account is overdue by one month telkom should cut it off like jake’s jake and not reconect untill all outstanding monies are settled in full. But you see the staff at telkom are probably too busy on the phone to keep check on the records
Question?
Similar situation IU thibnk – Gonubie lost its Blue Flag status because the service supplier didn’t take samples, that was according to the BCM anyway.
Was the real truth that BCM had not paid the service supplier and he refused to do any more work.
Doesn’t matter, they are all the same incompetent cavier swilling ignoramuses who couldn’t organise a piss up in a brewery.
[...] is what the Daily Dispatch reported today. Bhisho is in the Eastern Cape, and is the administrative capital of the Eastern [...]
Greetings from Iraq
“He appealed to service providers not to put the lives of the public at risk”
This Mr Kupelo really is a piece of work , if the DOH ( govt ) had proper people doing a proper job then it would not have come to this Mr Kupelo.
But when you start hiring people because of race , sex and all sorts of reasons besides being the best person for the job then this is exactly what you get & that is why most govt departments & Eishkom sit where they sit today…..
I am an ex govt employee , worked for the Dept of Health and I resigned in 2004 and I can honestly say no regrets , because 6 years later you people just cant get your house in order.
They are all a bunch of useless morons in fact they are a vacant lot.We may as well have kindergarten children running the dept,they would probably do a better job.
lol, KHANYISO your forefathers had money…bwa-ha-ha? When my forefathers got here (Africa), your forefathers were migrant “farmers” planting nothing, harvesting and hunting everything that moved or not to extinction and them moved to the next greener pasture… We brought you money and showed you that it is not the tokolosie that turned Eden into the Kalahari, it was you and your kind, you that ate it up… just like the Health Dep bank account you stole it empty… who’ next?
Onsite Now
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