Follow-up: DSD, SASSA & NDA 2020/21 Annual Report

Meeting report

Discussion

Ms L Arries (EFF) asked SASSA to give a breakdown of the penalties paid to hotels, and whether staff who did not show up for the hotels and car rentals would be held liable. Was there a timeframe for filling vacancies? How many private partnerships had the National Development Agency (NDA) established? The report showed only one partnership with the Unemployment Insurance Fund (UIF). Only R3.2 million of the R24 million had been spent on the 2 049 job opportunities mentioned. This was pathetic, because community outreach services (COSs) were organisations rendering services to the poor. How did they have an under-spending when they said they had surpassed the target of 300 jobs, managing to reach 1 140. What timeframe did they have to complete investigations? The NDA spent only 78.9% of their budget, so clearly it was not assisting communities.

In Programme One, there was lack of capacity in the legal and human resources (HR) areas. What plan was there to ensure that the people were capacitated? There was a need for a skills audit. In SASSA’s presentation, they had said they wanted to end hunger. How many food-insecure people were there in the country? The NDA was also running the community development nutrition centres, and they were under-spending on their budget. How many people lived below the extreme poverty line? When would key vacancies like the Chief Operating Officer be filled? On the investigation that had taken seven years from 2014/5 which cost R1.2 billion, would the amount of R360 million remain the same after seven years?  Was the money still owing? Was there interest on this amount? When would the 1 228 financial misconduct cases be finalised?

On reducing levels of poverty, Members expected 100% of the target to be reached in the current situation. Only 70% of the social assistance debts were recovered against the planned 5% target. What measures were in place to recover this money? Only half of the 75% target for financial misconduct cases was met. This was pathetic. How would SASSA ensure that the cases were finalised? How would money be recovered from those outside the country who were not entitled to receive the R350 social relief of distress (SRD) grants? On procurement with less than three quotations, why were proper supply chain management (SCM) prescripts not followed? Was there any consequence management for those employees who did not follow procedures?

Ms B Masango (DA) congratulated the Department on a clean audit. As earlier said, this positive audit outcome must translate to service to citizens. The AG’s report said the food parcel distribution was captured manually. How were the figures of households and individuals who benefited arrived at? The AG said there was a possibility that people were getting more than one parcel, while others did not receive any. Instead of calculating the number of food parcels distributed as an indication, what system was used to determine the number of people that were claimed to have received the food parcels? On the SRD “cash send” option, some people had said they had not been getting the grant after opting for this. It was previously mentioned that the “cash send” option was not operational because of on-going negotiations with the banks. Had there been any progress? On the fraudulent withdrawal of grants, SASSA had tried to ensure that grant recipients got their money, but Members were concerned about the pain and inconvenience that recipients went through when they did not receive the grants monthly. What was being done to stem the negative tide and the effects it had on the people?

SASSA had stated the progress on the call centre was not where it ought to be. This was the only connection that online applicants had with SASSA. If work was still in progress, it meant the applicants had no way of contacting SASSA to find out the status of their applications. It was encouraging to note that discussions and actions were under way to reduce long queues at Post Offices. However, the concern remained that people had to go to the Post Offices numerous times after the receipt of the SMS indicating that they could collect the money, which worked against efforts to reduce the queues. What was being done to ensure that people got their money the first time? Although outside the scope of the meeting, the delay in the payment of non-governmental organisations (NGOs) was a concern. This led to under-spending by the Department in some provinces. It was a shame that in some provinces, the Department of Social Development (DSD) was under-spending by hundreds of millions. What was being done about this situation?

Ms G Opperman (DA) said the NDA had applied for condonation of R96.1 million from Treasury for irregular transactions dating back from 2013 to 2019. What had Treasury’s response been? SASSA had also requested R278 million to be written off by Treasury, which had been rejected. Why did Treasury reject this, and what would SASSA do now? How many legal claims for damages were currently lodged against the NDA? What was the cumulative value? What progress had been made with the investigation into the UIF's new venture programme that had resulted in a loss of R23.2 million? Considering the huge budget cut in 2020, when did the Department foresee implementing the Basic Income Grant (BIG) or the income support grant to people between the ages of 18 to 59 years old?

There were heightened levels of gender-based violence (GBV), femicide and child neglect during the pandemic, yet the substance abuse system could not be developed in the DSD. Why did the specification need review? SASSA had opened the financial year with R1.2 billion in irregular expenditure from cases dating as far back as 2014/15. Why were investigations taking seven years to finalise? The Pannar Seeds case involving the NDA was already five years old. Would there be any further action to recoup the R761 230 payment for the purchase of sunflower seeds for NDA projects in the Eastern Cape and the Free State? The NDA had 19 frozen vacant posts during the financial year. Why were they frozen? When would they be filled? It had overpaid a service provider by R316 million in 2014, which had resulted in a huge financial loss. What was the interest on that to date? What was the status of that investigation?

SASSA had experienced material loss of R74 million for payment of social assistance fees on services that were not rendered in April 2018. What had been the response to the accounting authority? Other questions would be submitted for a written reply.

Ms A Abrahams (DA) asked the Department to update their website on a regular basis. None of the completed policies mentioned in the annual report had been uploaded to the DSD website. This would be helpful to the Committee and members of the public in answering their questions. This included the Youth Development Agency (YDA) policy and the maternal support policy. The tender folder was also incomplete, with many pages having errors.

Most of the AG's findings seemed to have supply chain management (SCM) at the centre. What ethical and other training did the SCM officials get, regardless of their positions, salary levels and functions? Slide 22 seemed misleading, because not all early childhood development (ECD) facilities had received the stimulus relief fund. The cash could be off the national books, but clearly all eight provinces had rollovers, which they now had put back in the accounts again. It had been found that the problem was with the centralised verification system at the national head office, which was holding back many provinces from paying the ECDs the stimulus relief fund. What was the head office doing to speed up the verification system so that the ECDs could get the money?

When would Phases Two and Three of the Vangasali programme be rolled out? Would the programme be migrating to Department of Basic Education (DBE) or would it stay with the DSD? The public hearings showed that there were many more ECDs than the 52 000 recorded with this programme. Would the Department submit in writing the physical addresses and contact details for the 14 completed community centres that were donated by the German bank?

Slide 38 showed the total expenditure of the Department. The amounts on the slide differ from what appears in the annual report on page 27. Why were the amounts different? What was the correct expenditure amount for the Department? On page 72, the Department originally tabled a parenting programme and should have trained 100 master trainers on parenting programmes. The funds got reprioritised for ECD COVID measures. When it was re-tabled, it was just an audit of existing parenting programmes. Would the DSD prioritise the parenting programmes in the new financial year, because parents were begging for help with their children and the vacuum of parenting skills was leading many parents to believe that government was supposed to be taking care of the children? Parents needed to be empowered.

On page 90 of the annual report, why was there an under-spending for the children's programme and the victim empowerment programme of over R30 million? Referring to the NDA report, Ms Abrahams said she had personally phoned a few of the CSOs who received the funding, and the majority of them had said they had not received their second tranche payment. Some were continuing with the GBV services, while others had had to scale back. All the first tranche payments were used up weeks and months ago, and financial reports were submitted. Why did the NDA not pay some CSOs their second tranche? When would they be paid? The NDA had re-advertised this programme for CSOs to make proposals to get more funding, with the closing date on 21 October. Was this new money being advertised, or it was the R100 million? Many organisations were sceptical about applying because of the unpleasant experience of waiting for the money. At the last meeting with the Committee, the NDA was almost in the red financially, with expenditure grossly exceeding the income. However, the current presentation showed that it had managed a massive turnaround, with the books looking favourable. How did the NDA manage to turn around in such a short space of time? Other questions would be submitted in writing.

Mr Linton Mchunu, Director-General (DG), DSD, said the Department had missed the questions from Ms Abrahams because of challenges with the network in Pretoria, and had to move to different premises. He asked for the questions to be repeated.

Ms Abrahams asked if the NDA was also sitting in the same room. She said her questions to the Department would be submitted in writing with a commitment on when the Department would respond. She requested that the NDA respond to the last question.

Ms J Manganye (ANC) said she was covered by Ms Abrahams.

Ms M Sukers (ACDP) said she realised the time pressure in the meeting, and requested a follow up meeting with the Department since there were issues raised by Members on the Department’s annual performance plan (APP) and operational realities faced in constituency. The Committee must step up its oversight with the Department, because the social crisis in the country was deepening but the DSD's capacity was limited due to fiscal constraints. The Committee must play a pivotal role in changing the trajectory of the social response from a government perspective. Members appreciated the way the Department had reported, which was aligned to the request that the Committee had made throughout the previous year. The report was results and outcome driven. Members commended the Department for an unqualified audit without findings. Some questions would be put in writing, with the understanding that the Department would respond. The previous track record of the Department in responding to written questions was not very good. This must be addressed.

The Committee had received a trail of emails that alluded to alleged fraud in the NDA. She had sent a petition to the previous Chairperson of the Committee for the matter to be investigated. The Chairperson had done so. In the AG’s response, they said the request had been sent to the previous board and was now with the new board. The Committee needed an update on the status of that investigation, including what the new board was going to do and in real time. On consequence management, if things continued in the same manner the crisis would deepen further, with devastating results for the country. The consequence management presented in the AG's report was also reported in the previous year's report. The Department could not just be giving status updates. The Committee needed an action plan. How much money had been recovered? How much had not been recovered? Who was responsible within the Department to ensure that money was recovered, or criminal investigations were proceeding? Members must know who was involved in the Department, and the action being done through performance management to address it.

Ms Sukers said she had had both excellent and very bad experience with the monitoring and evaluation of the services of social partners like Badisa,. How was the Department monitoring the performance of social partners in communities? There were serious complaints about correctional facilities, like youth centres. She had discussed this with the DG. There were serious implications that would make Members liable for sitting in public hearings of children needing to be protected. Parliament could not be complacent regarding such acts. How was the Department monitoring the correctional facilities?

There were two realities being faced. First, the internal environment of the organisation to deliver on its mandate, and secondly, the real time output of the organisation to those reliant on its services. The APP gave a window into both. There were poor internal controls within SASSA and the NDA, irregular and wasteful expenditure, and poor consequence management within SASSA. Secondly, Members saw the real time output of the organisation, such as the number of young people that would not be brought to drug rehabilitation centres, or the number of vulnerable women unable to get into a holistic programme and taken out of danger. The NDA had reported a turnaround strategy process, and the Department had an organisational restructure process. What was the monetary amount of both processes? How would they ensure that what was learnt in these processes was translated to the key performance indicators (KPI) of all the teams, executives and senior managers?

The Chairperson asked that individuals within the Department respond to the questions without the DG directing individuals or repeating what was asked, since there was not enough time.

DSD's response

An official of the Department referred to the question on minimum norms and standards in care centres, and said it had a tool called the "minimum blueprint" to monitor the 31 secure care centres in the country. Provinces submitted quarterly reports indicating how they were managing, including other issues such as gangsterism, bullying and sexual offences. These were monitored and recorded. The Department relied on the provinces for information. However, where a community member raised issues which were not necessarily reflected in a report, the DSD engaged the province and requests them to provide further information, or to investigate where DSD were not satisfied with the report.

Ms Isabella Sekwana Acting DDG, DSD, responded to the question on the stimulus package. She said the DSD was continuously engaging with the provincial structures to ensure monitoring of the process. In addition, the Department realised the need to strengthen the communication on the ground. A sector summit had been held the previous day in the Eastern Cape which had included an appraisal of the stimulus package. The Department was trying to ensure that people on the ground understood what was happening. Some had already been processed, but the Department was still grappling to ensure support was given to the ECD sector. Help desks had also been set up.

Mr Peter Netshipale, DDG: Integrate Development, DSD, responded to the question on the non-profit organisation (NPO) system. The DSD shared the concerns of Members and tried to ensure that all NPOs were paid in time. In the first quarter, serious challenges were experienced in the payment of NPOs. However, bi-weekly meetings with provinces were instituted to ensure that they had to pay. The second quarter report was promising. Although in some areas they were late, there was a lot of progress. The Department always monitored and got reports from provinces and was ensuring that the problem must be addressed once for all. In the second quarter, by mid-September, there was 94% of payments made, and 100% in some provinces. The only provinces which were lower were Northwest and Northern Cape. In the Northern Cape, it was because they had added some new NPOs that needed to be funded. Provinces like Gauteng and the Western Cape had paid 100%, and other provinces had already paid their second trench. From a national point of view, the Department was developing a system to have a three-year funding plan, so that service level agreements (SLAs) did not have to be signed every year. The system would ensure that once the NPOs were nominated, they received the funding in time, using an electronic system.

Mr Mchunu added to the response on the NPO payments. One important issue was that sometimes NPOs did not comply with the rules and regulations for the transfer of payments to be made. There were very stringent rules and processes that must be followed, and if certain documents were not processed, the Department was unable to pay. However, there had been a significant improvement by several provinces. Previously, some had been sitting at 20%, and some at 30%. However, the Minister now convenes regular meetings, and this was a standing agenda item, even in the meeting with Heads of Department (HODs). The matter was receiving attention. Although the change may not be to the desirable extent, there was certainly a significant shift. 

Referring to the substance abuse system, he said the Department's analysis on the requirements for the integration of GBV and the Victim Empowerment Programme (VEP) systems was now complete. A service provider had been appointed, and the systems would be developed accordingly. The Department would report quarterly, since this was part of the targets for the current financial year.,

Discussions were under way on the budget cuts, and the Department would report to the Committee once this engagement process with various government structures around the basic income grants was completed.

SASSA's response

Ms Totsie Memela, CEO, SASSA, responded to the question about the no-show at hotels. The normal process was that SASSA always investigated to find out why the people did not appear. The CFO would give further details. On the issue of the R316 million and the R74 million that AGSA had spoken about, SASSA was currently responding to the AG on the material irregularity (MI) in relation to both cases. Both were related to Cash Paymaster Services (CPS). CPS had been taken to court by Corruption Watch regarding the R316 million, and on the R74 million, there were indications that payment was supposed to be made for work done, but it had to do with the phase-in-phase-out approach. On the other broader irregular expenditures dating a long time back, these had occurred because in many cases the investigations took a long time. SASSA continued to engage with Treasury to ensure that these cases were cleared.  As earlier indicated in the previous meeting, about R800 million was related to six cases. SASSA was committed to ensuring that these were cleared by the end of the year.

Mr Tsakeriwa Chauke, CFO, SASSA, responded to the question on fruitless and wasteful expenditure. AGSA had indicated that there was about R1 million of fruitless and wasteful expenditure. Of that amount, only R8 998 was related to the no-shows. Part of the struggle in the pandemic was that a hotel could be booked, but on the day an individual was not feeling well or would be experiencing symptoms, they may not be able to go and take up the accommodation.

Ms Memela responded to the question on vacancies. In the previous year, there was a situation where some of the operations budget had to be allocated to operations implementing the 360 campaign, so vacancies could not be filled at the time. SASSA had looked at the critical areas to capacitate branches on work that needed to be done. This was on track. Wherever there was funding, those vacancies would be filled. In some cases, they could not be filled because the funding was no longer available. As Members were aware, entities had had budget cuts. In this financial year, SASSA had had a cut of R600 million, mostly relating to the cost of employees. This was the challenge.

Adv Nkosinathi Dladla, Chief Director: Legal Services, SASSA, said referred to the R316 million, and said SASSA was claiming about R630 million, including interest. The matter was still under process, because CPS had been liquidated. SASSA had caused this liquidation because CPS was unable to pay, since its liabilities exceeded its assets. The liquidators had not yet come back to SASSA, because they were still fighting with the South African Revenue Service (SARS), as SARS was required to assess CPS's finances. They were waiting for the court to give direction. SASSA hoped that this money would be recovered, because the Supreme Court of Appeal had ruled that CPS needed to pay SASSA back.

Mr Chauke apologised for the loss of connection. He continued his response on the no-show, which was less than R9 000. The interest and penalties for the year under review was R161 000. Although invoices were paid within 30 days, there were issues relating to the municipal invoices, because the billing period of the municipal services was not aligned to the 30-day period. This was because of the lockdown and in other instances, because some of the staff not being available. Although the invoices were paid within 30 days, some had attracted interest.

There was an amount of R266 000 included in the R1 million of fruitless and wasteful expenditure. This amount was related to a payment to a service provider. SASSA had opened a fraud case because it was found that there was a falsified payment made to the service provider, who was appointed to do training. Although the training was subsequently cancelled, the provider made a claim, and validation processes happened within the organisation. This was reported to the police as a criminal case. Consequence management was also carried out on the R266 000.

The bulk of the R746 000, which was included in the R1 million, involved two officials. One in KwaZulu-Natal (KZN) amounted to R550,000, where the official claimed to be sick and was not reporting for work. However, the official was unable to provide proof from the doctors, and had been dismissed. Since salaries had already been paid, SASSA was in the recovery process. The other official was in Gauteng, and R280 000 was involved. Disciplinary action was in process.

Of the R1.2 billion in irregular expenditure that SASSA started the year with, they had closed with R1.1 billion. R820 million was related to the six cases being dealt with, including those referred to by the head of Legal Services. Processes had been put in place. The performance report showed that 434 of the over 1 000 cases had been finalised. There was concerted effort to finalise these cases. As mentioned in the presentation, there were some cases for condonation which had been sent to Treasury.

Three things were being done in the organisation. Firstly, preventing the ongoing irregular expenditure. The bulk of the challenge being dealt with was the procurement of leases. Once done, the door would have closed. Secondly, in cases where irregular expenditure could not be prevented, it must be disclosed. The bulk of the irregular expenditure of R20 million was done by SASSA and detected by SASSA. The detection systems were working. The third element was consequence management, and corrective measures had been put in place, as earlier mentioned.

Treasury did not approve the R278 million for the Social Assistance debt because it wanted SASSA to strengthen two areas. First was minimising the incurring of debt, and second was to make efforts to increase the recovery. SASSA had developed two strategies currently being discussed with the Department and Treasury. One strategy was gate-keeping, to strengthen the anti-fraud strategy dealing with the reviews of people within the system, and enhancement based on the learning of the R350 grant. The second strategy was the debt management strategy for improvement of recovery. The first focus was on the public servants. The second part was to ensure that those who were currently in receipt of older people's grants or adult grants could be deducted. Those individuals who felt that they could not afford to survive would have to make representation to SASSA for consideration based on undue hardship. The other plan was dealing with people over 60 who were currently not part of the Old Age Grant. SASSA was pursuing this. Lastly SASSA was working on the appointment of debt collectors, because the state attorney was unable to deal with all the cases. The procurement process was under way. An application had been resubmitted to Treasury for a write-off in the year 2021/22. Hopefully this would be approved. If the amount could not be recovered, it would have to be written off.

Ms Dianne Dunkerley, Executive Manager: Grants Administration, SASSA, responded to the question on the recovery of funds from people who received the R350 grant when they were not entitled to. SASSA was in the process of validating AGSA’s findings. For example, SASSA had engaged the Department of Public Service and Administration (DPSA) over public servants who had received the grant to which they were not entitled. The DPSA findings had shown an 18% variance from what AGSA had reported, indicating that although they appeared in the system, they were not currently employed, and so were entitled to the grant. Where it was found that the individual owed the money, there was a process to register the debt.

On the food parcel distribution, although the process was manual, there was an application form and thereafter an extensive process of reconciling the application forms. SASSA was confident about the numbers reported. There were findings that a few families would have received more than one parcel because of the manual process, and remedial actions had been put in place to prevent this. One of the hard lessons learnt was that even in a crisis, there must be systematic ways of responding to people’s needs, because with the large numbers, it was difficult to control when it was done manually.

The “cash send” option was not yet available. With reintroduction of the grant, SASSA had to follow full procurement processes to contract a service provider. With the banks, it had to get approval from Treasury to go on a closed tender. This process was under way. However, to try and limit the inconvenience for those who chose the “cash send” option, messages were sent to communicate to them that it was not yet available and asked them to provide bank details. Those who provided the banking details received the money. For others, payments for August, September and October were sent through the Post Office. Once the contract issue was sorted out, the option would be available and those who chose the option would be able to use it.

The fraudulent withdrawal of grants was a serious concern to SASSA, and engagement with Post Office continued. Fraud was happening where cards were issued in Post Office branches. There had been some improvement with the re-issuing of the cards. Although a permanent solution had not been finalised, SASSA would continue to engage with the Post Office.

There were still challenges in the call centre because of the volumes being dealt with. However, with approval from Treasury and having followed a supply chain process, a contract had been extended for the service provider. SASSA was now back to a full complement of 300 additional call centre agents. A difference was already being observed in the response to calls and emails. A backlog still existed, but it was being resolved through overtime, to catch up particularly on the emailed queries. Parallel to this process, SASSA was modernising its own call centre environment by getting additional up-to-date systems and technology to support the work. That way, SASSA would be able to manage the process in-house. The additional external support would be available until March, to assist in responding to the numbers.

On the question on managing queues in post offices, there was a huge improvement compared to the previous year. This was because alternative channels had been introduced by the Post Office, where people could go to identified retailers to access their R350 grant. Post Office and Postbank continue to expand that network. People could now go to Pick n Pay or Baxter, but it was being expanded to include the Shoprite Group and Spar. This way, people would visit the shop network in local areas, and not have to travel far to access the grant.

NDA's responses

Mr Xolile Brukwe, Head of Stakeholder Relations, NDA, responded to the question on partnerships. In the year under review, the NDA had entered into five cooperation agreements, which were with the NYDA, SASSA Northwest, SASSA Free state, and the Gauteng DSD. Detailed documents of these agreements would be shared with Members.

On exceeding the target on job opportunities created, targets had had to be revised because of Covid. NDA undertook volunteer flagship programmes. Written details could be sent to the Committee.

An assessment report on the UIF investigation was being done by the Agency. It was looking forward to establishing a loss-control committee to determine whether there was criminality or fraud in the process, to effect consequence management and disciplinary action. HR was working on the process. That committee would consist not only of members from the NDA. It would be working on assessing the proposals on the Criminal Assets Recovery Account (CARA) received in the coming week.

Mr Solomon Shingange, CFO, NDA, responded to the question on under-spending. Although the financial statement indicated under-spending, this was related to grant funding because some of the projects were approved very late in the financial year -- mostly towards the end of the third and fourth quarters. For all projects that were approved in the financial year but whose funds had not yet been disbursed, 99% of those had been paid by the end of the second quarter of the current financial year. The overall under-spending in the NDA budget as presented showed a surplus of R15 million. As such, these were not unspent funds. The NDA entered into contracts with various suppliers to provide goods and services which had not yet been delivered by the end of the financial year. It had applied to Treasury to retain the surpluses for the funds that were already committed through purchase orders or contracts signed with suppliers.

He explained how the NDA managed to turn around the overspending in the second and third quarter of the previous financial year. The NDA had a half-way budget review process. Evaluation was done on progress of budget implementation and areas that needed to readjust. A budget adjustment was done in October, with another one in December, when National Treasury cut its allocation by a further R8 million. Reprioritisation was done.

The NDA had submitted transactions worth R92 million for condonation, and Treasury had requested additional information on the process NDA had undertaken to do the determination, based on Treasury’s framework. That report was submitted to Treasury, and they were awaiting a response.

The total legal claims that the NDA was sitting with amounted to about R4.5 million, relating to three key cases. One was a claim by a supplier called Uhuru, where the supplier had been appointed by an executive without following the necessary process. The NDA had gone to court and applied for the contract to be set aside. The court had approved the setting aside of the contract, but the supplier was challenging the process. However, the case had not moved in the past three years, as the supplier had not filed its follow-up affidavits to take the process forward. Similarly, the case with Pannar Seeds of R761000, which NDA was disputing, had also not moved because the suppliers had not filed their follow up affidavits for the court processes. The last legal claim was by a supplier called Fair Deal, which had also not moved in the past three years because the supplier had not filed the affidavits. The supplier had handed over the case to the Public Protector, but the Public Protector had responded that if the matter was in courts, they could not handle it.

Referring to the freezing of about 16 or 17 posts in the previous financial year, he said when the budget reprioritisation process was done in June to reallocate some of the budget to fund the COVID-19 response, the posts were frozen to free funds. Moving forward, the issue of posts at the NDA would be handled through the turnaround process that it was undertaking to determine the nature and number of staff it required. The turnaround plan was currently being undertaken by a supplier called Vision Active.

Mr Ben Morule, Senior Manager: Office of the CEO, NDA responded to the question on the cost of the turnaround strategy. This was being implemented at a total cost of R4.5 million. Ordinarily there would be recommendations arising from the implementation of a turnaround strategy which would translate into specific KPIs and an APP. The APPs to be implemented in the next financial year would primarily be led by recommendations from the turnaround strategy. These would also translate to specific performance agreements for individual managers, linked to the annual operations and implemented monthly. The specific recommendations from the turnaround strategy would relate to several areas, including organisational restructuring, the funding model, and the business and service delivery model.

DG's comments

Mr Mchunu said he appreciated the input from the Members. The Department was committed to ensuring that the performance and clean audits translated to an improvement in the quality of life of all South Africans on the ground, especially those in townships and rural areas. This was based on the context of the developmental and transformation agenda. This was being done through a results-based approach, as Members would have seen, following the guidance of the Committee. The Department took note of concerns raised by Members, particularly on under-performance, under-expenditure, and fruitless and wasteful expenditure. The Department recommitted to do better in these areas. The Department took guidance from the Committee on consequence management. It welcomed the proposal for the Committee to do more oversight, as it would assist in improving and complementing interventions on the ground, because the Committee interacted directly with communities on the ground.

The Department would work much more closely with the provinces. It had heard the comments on the track record of not responding on time. This had improved significantly in the past, and the Secretary would attest to the fact that when the Department was given specific timeframes, most of those questions were responded to. For this meeting, once questions were received, a response would be sent within a space of five days.

He apologised on behalf of the Minister, who was unable to attend the meeting as she was attending pre-arranged interviews.

Closing remarks

The Chairperson said Members were on the ground at public hearings, where many concerns and questions were being asked, and they were the ones who had to answer them, so the concerns raised by Members needed to be seriously considered by the Department and the agencies.

Communication for another meeting would be made, since Members had not been able to ask follow-up questions due to the time limitation.

The meeting was adjourned.