What’s a billion between friends?

By Peter Davis

Perhaps it’s because I’ m not all that bright, but the concept of R1billion is difficult for my brain to comprehend – I mean, it’s R1 000 000 000, and that’s an awful lot of zeros for the old grey cells to process. I then have to imagine 10 million R100 notes piled on a table and spilling over on to the floor. You get the picture!

I’m grappling with these mind-boggling strings of zeros because of the seemingly casual way millions and billions are thrown around with frightening abandon and no one seems to raise more than a desultory eyebrow. Take the auditor general’ s latest report on government expenditure. His team found that R26.4 billion was spent in an unauthorised, irregular, fruitless and wasteful manner.

Now let us bend over backwards to be fair. Irregular and unauthorised expenditure does not necessarily mean the money was misspent, but rather that it did not go through the proper administrative procedures. So let us subtract say a third from that figure, which leaves around R17 billion that was spent on crooked or subverted tenders, friends and family or civil servants dipping into the procurement trough and money that has simply disappeared without any apparent paperwork.

To put this into perspective: there are roughly 400 000 houses still needed in Durban to give everyone a stake in the city. The government provides nearly R90 000 subsidy per house built. If the money that has disappeared from government departments was spent on housing in Durban, we would halve the housing backlog in one year! As it stands, it will take us more than 20 years to catch up without taking rapid urbanisation into account.

It’ s scary stuff.

On top of the auditor general’ s findings of tax money gushing out of budgets, the Special Investigations Unit told Parliament that between R25 billion and R30 billion of the government’ s procurement budget went down the drain each year as civil servants stuck their greedy fingers into the till, overpaid for products and services (often with kickbacks) and simply failed to monitor spending.

Added to that, the government intends spending nearly R170 million on refurbishing the interiors of President Zuma’ s various residences. Now these are state (read taxpayers) properties and I am sure they are in need of maintenance to keep up their value, but I can’t believe they need to spend R170 million to do that.

But as I said, millions and billions seem to slip away so easily and so few people seem to give a damn: after all, what’s another billion between friends and family?

The fact is, such profligacy is simply not sustainable. By their nature, all governments have elements of corruption, but most realise that the gold laying goose, the taxpayer, has to be looked after to keep laying. In this country the corrupt have yet to learn that lesson.

The tax base is dwindling and taxpayers can’t pay more. All too soon, when the Minister of Finance goes to the treasury cupboard, he will find it empty. And that’s when the revolution will really start.

Peter Davis is a former newspaper editor and city councillor
** This blog first appeared as a column in the Durban North Fever newspaper.

** Latest: President Jacob Zuma has just announced a major Cabinet reshuffle, in the face of charges of corruption within specific departments. Two ministers have been sacked.