The Department of Public Works and Infrastructure (DPWI) has reduced the number of overdue payments to service providers, Patricia de Lille wrote in her farewell letter to staff.
“As I leave the DPWI to serve South Africa in another capacity, I wish to thank the acting director-general, Dr Alec Moemi, and the staff in the department for their work and support during my time in DPWI,” she wrote in an open letter dated March 8.
De Lille said while the department was faced with many difficulties, it managed to achieve some successes.
“One of the key successes over the past three-and-a-half years is that DPWI has maintained a record of reducing the number of overdue payments to service providers, and recently managed to keep them on-time 30-day payment rate above 95%.”
During the cabinet reshuffle on Monday evening, President Cyril Ramaphosa announced that De Lille will replace Lindiwe Sisulu as minister of tourism.
She also expressed her gratitude to Mandla Sithole, the department’s chief financial officer, and the finance department for their diligence in ensuring that services providers got paid on time.
“I encourage them to ensure that the department continues to do so.”
The former Pan Africanist Congress of Azania secretary-general further thanked the department for its performance with regard to land reform, saying it managed to release thousands of hectares since June 2019 for land-reform purposes.
“I commit to working even harder to ensure that our country deals with inequality, unemployment and poverty,” De Lille said in her parting shot, adding that tourism is a major sector “and we have much more to offer the world”.
“We can do a lot more to reach our full potential and create many more jobs for our people,” she said.
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