Speaker, the need to achieve clean audits and effective service delivery are discussed constantly within national government and also with Premiers in the Presidential Co-ordinating Council. All nine Premiers share this determination.
The targets for clean audits in provincial departments also form part of the draft delivery agreement and the performance contracts with the Minister for Co-operative Governance and Traditional Affairs. In these targets, the MECs for the various departments are the delivery partners and therefore their own performance contracts will include the same targets for clean audits, and it will be expected of them to report on and account for their specific performances. I thank you.
Speaker, hon President, in the light of the recent unprecedented achievement by the Western Cape provincial government, where all the departments received unqualified audits for the first time ever in any province, in any legislature, ever in South Africa since 1994 ... [Applause.] ... I would like to ask how many successive qualified or disclaimer audits government regards as permissible for a government department to receive before it would take action against the executive officer and the accounting officer in charge of managing those finances, as per the unambiguous prescripts of the Public Finance Management Act, sections 34 to 38, outlined in Chapter 10 of that Act? I thank you.
Speaker, firstly, let me help the hon member and my colleague. The Western Cape is not the first to have a clean audit; Gauteng has had it many times. [Applause.] Not qualified - unqualified! [Interjections.] I am talking about Gauteng ... [Applause.] ... which has always been under the ANC. [Applause.] [Laughter.]
Of course, there are monitoring systems in government once it is discovered that there are problems in terms of the usage of funds. There are actions that are always taken in government, which are tabled and known. Therefore, at a given time, once those responsible for that realise that they have to take action - because, even if the audits are qualified, they may be qualified this year and may not be qualified the other year - once that becomes a consistent kind of record, there are actions that have to be taken, which are contained in the Constitution. So, there is no doubt that, if anything went wrong, action will be taken at the right moment. I thank you.
Speaker, hon President, the audit generally is indicative of how efficient the particular department or government is performing its task. During your visit to Langrug informal settlement near Groendal, you said that when a government is not doing well, people should exercise their constitutional right to replace that government.
Using the same criterion, which you have so clearly established now, shouldn't the ANC-led government administration, that year after year cannot get unqualified audits because of their ineptitude, be dealt with in the very same way that you proposed to the residents of Langrug? [Applause.]
Speaker, I said, if people do not perform, it is the right of the voters to replace them. Since 1994 the voters have been putting the ANC in all the time, and they will continue to do so. [Interjections.] [Applause.]
That tells you more about the judgment of the people towards the ANC; otherwise they will not be voting for the ANC. I thank you. [Applause.]
Speaker, thank you, Mr President, for your answer. Mr President, whilst financial accountability is important, I think equally important is optimal service delivery, and these two aspects are not mutually exclusive.
We know that directors-general signed contracts with the President, and provincial heads of departments signed contracts with the Premiers. Contained in the Public Finance Management Act is a set of responsibilities of accounting officers. For example, in terms of section 38 an accounting officer must take effective and appropriate steps to collect all money due to the department, etc.
We also find in section 86 offences, penalties and criminal proceedings that can be instituted against heads of departments or directors-general who transgress the law. Up to now we know there have been instances where directors-general and provincial heads of departments have transgressed the Public Finance Management Act, but we have yet to institute criminal proceedings against any of these officials.
Isn't it about time that we draw a line in the sand and use the provisions of the Public Finance Management Act and make sure that criminal proceedings are instituted against these officials who wilfully and grossly negligently transgress the laws? I thank you. [Applause.]
Hon Speaker, certainly, that is what the law says and certainly the law must apply. One of the problems is that, standing here, I would not know which case in particular you are referring to.
If you were saying, "Here is a case and this is what happened", I would then be able to tell you what happened. But because the question is generalised I would not know what happened in that particular case, what that case required in terms of action and what this case was. It would be very useful for the hon member to say, "Here are the cases where we think no action has been taken when people have, in a sense, violated the rules". Then it will be easy to answer the question.
At the moment it is very difficult to give a specific answer to a generalised question. I appreciate the concern, and it is important; however, we need to say that here is the law and here is a culprit, and then appropriate action should be taken, or that it was not taken here or there, so that one would know what the merits of these cases were. I thank you.
Thank you, Speaker. Asibonge kuMongameli, Mongameli, ... [We thank the President. President, ...]
...we know that the clean audit is not measured in any way by the performance audit outcome. Perhaps that should be the approach, where we concentrate more on a performance audit outcome, meaning the value for money.
Ngifuna ukuthi Mongameli uma senza njalo mhlawumbe kuzosisiza ukuthi senze isiqiniseko sokuthi sakha izindlu, izikole eziseqophelweni, izindlu zangasese eziseqophelweni nezimboziwe ngaphezulu ... [Uhleko]... ukuze abantu bakithi uma bebulala inyathi bakwazi ukuyibulala kahle esithe, bangabulali inyathi esigangeni njengoba kwenzekile eNtshonalanga Kapa yize bethole le-clean audit esikhuluma ngayo.]
UMONGAMELI WERIPHABHLIKHI: Lungu elihloniphekile, angizukukuphendula ukuthi inyathi ibulawa kanjani futhi ibulawelwaphi ... [Uhleko.] ... ngoba yisilwane esesabekayo leso. [Uhleko.] (Translation of isiZulu paragraphs follows.)
[Mr President, I would like to say that if we do that, perhaps this will help us ensure the building of decent houses, decent schools and decent toilets, which are covered ... [Laughter.] ... so that our people can relieve themselves in privacy and not in the open as has happened in the Western Cape, even though they got a clean audit - the one that we are talking about.
Hon member, I am not going to answer you on how and where people relieve themselves ... [Laughter.] ... because that is a very private matter. [Laughter.]]
I agree with you. It will be good if these two were going together; the clean audit and proper performance, what has been done to spend our money. That's a good thing and this is what we are trying to align as we try to do everything to co-ordinate and monitor.
The performance monitoring mechanism and evaluation will partly deal with that issue to look at exactly what happened as you disbursed the money.
At times somebody could make a false report. One accountant told me a story that I could not forget, when he said that at times people could make numbers talk. I did not understand what he meant. It means, as you made the example, that the audit can be clean but the results may not reflect that. So, we do need to align that kind of work. I thank you. [Applause.]
Countries identified as high potential trading partners and details relating thereto
18. Mr M G P Lekota (Cope) asked the President of the Republic:
(a) Which (i) countries have been identified as high potential trading partners and (ii) of these countries have been visited by him accompanied by a delegation of Ministers and business people, (b) what was the selection criteria for the business delegations to each of these countries, (c) what benefits were derived in terms of job creation and poverty alleviation and (d) what was the total expenditure to the state of these official visits?