Leaked information from within SA Health has revealed $623 million, or 26 per cent of SA Health’s accounts last year, were not paid within the required 30 day period.
Shadow Health Minister Rob Lucas said the figures showed $196 million of accounts were paid after more than 60 days.
“SA Health’s performance in not paying accounts on time is deplorable compared to most other departments such as DECD (2 per cent), DPC (2 per cent), DPTI (3 per cent) and PIRSA (7 per cent),” said Mr Lucas.
“Within SA Health, units such as the Royal Adelaide Hospital (31 per cent) and the South Australian Dental Service (30 per cent) are performing particularly poorly.
“Non-payments of accounts on time by government agencies has a significant impact on many small businesses and contractors who have already incurred the cost but are waiting weeks or months to be paid by the Government.
“This is yet another example of financial mismanagement by Minister Snelling and the Weatherill Labor Government.
“Minister Snelling has just installed the Oracle IT project with a budget cost of more than $60 million, which was meant to improve financial management in SA Health.
“This was in fact a blowout of about $44 million on the original estimate. In addition, Minster Snelling spent $1.7 million on consultants PKF to help fix errors created by the introduction of Oracle.
“So having spent tens of millions of dollars on consultants and new IT systems, SA Health’s performance in paying accounts on time in 2012/13 remains abysmal.”
