Hon Speaker, as stated, we want to present the fourth to the fourteenth reports of the committee, which is comprised of five national departments, and they are the Department of Correctional Services, the Department of Co-operative Governance and Traditional Affairs, Cogta, the Department of Rural Development and Land Reform, the Department of Health, the Department of Public Works, together with its property management trading entity, and three entities, which are the Road Traffic Management Corporation, the National Health Laboratory Services, as well as the Council for Medical Schemes.
There are also two reports arising from the performance audit of the infrastructure delivery process at the provincial departments of Health and Basic Education. We do want to state that, of the five departments, the Department of Public Works had a disclaimer of audit opinion, the Department of Correctional Services, Cogta, as well as the Department of Rural Development and Land Reform had qualified audit opinions. However, the Department of Health had an unqualified audit opinion.
What we see in general in all these departments is that the key causative factor is weak internal controls that lead to all manner of problems that the Auditor-General has identified, including the challenge of asset management, which I think in the case of the Department of Correctional Services has been an issue of qualification since 2005. then there is irregular expenditure that amounts to millions of rands. I do want to state that irregular expenditure does not immediately, by its very appearance, denote that there have been any corrupt practices. All it means is that monies have been paid or used without following due processes. It's only when an investigation is done that a determination can be made.
However, we also have fruitless and wasteful expenditure, which means that money has been used in ways that did not benefit the department. In such cases we always insist that action needs to be taken against officials who were involved.
There are investigations, especially in Cogta as well the Department of Public Works, for which we, as a committee, are requesting that once those investigations have been completed, the relevant reports should be made available to Parliament, so that we could, as Parliament, be in a position to check how the departments are acting to ensure implementation of those recommendations.
There is also, in relation to Department of Public Works and Department of Rural Development and Land Reform, the issue of the land audit or the properties. We are still experiencing the challenge of the authenticity and the completeness of their asset registers, which we believe can only be finalised when there is co-operation, not only between these two departments, but also other government institutions and municipalities. It's only then that you can have a sense of completeness around these matters. With regard to the entities, the National Health Laboratory Services as well as the Council for Medical Schemes, we must stress that they had unqualified audit opinions. However, there are issues around which we need to engage with them that have to do with compliance with legislation, how they manage information on finances as well as performance, and the issues around leadership. With the National Health Laboratory Services, the board has been incomplete for a period of time because the various stakeholders have not all submitted names so that the board can be completed and therefore function appropriately.
Unfortunately, as regard the Road Traffic Management Corporation, that entity had an adverse opinion and it has been in that state for quite some time. So, instead of things improving from the previous engagement that we have had with them and the resolutions that this House has passed, if anything, things have gone a little backward. Because of that, there is a whole range of things that we can deal with. It means that there was no agreement between the entity and the Auditor-General in terms of what opinion to make out of the shambles that is their financials.
Lastly, we have two resolutions that deal with the performance audit of the Auditor-General on the infrastructure delivery process at provincial departments of basic education and health. And the report deals with the four phases of delivery which is the demand management, acquisition management, project management as well as commissioning and utilisation.
What the report paints is an unfortunate picture of a lack of capacity, of delays, lack of proper management and monitoring. The impact of these is loss of money by the state in terms of the escalation of costs, as well as a delay in the completion of the projects. Because of poor monitoring and management, some of the infrastructure is of a very poor quality.
We have had engagements with the provincial departments here in Parliament, together with the public accounts committees from these provinces. We believe that it is important that the provincial public accounts committees follow up with these departments, firstly, in terms of insuring that projects that were incomplete are completed; secondly, that those projects where people have been paid without having completed these projects are followed up and brought to book; and, thirdly, that officials who have been responsible by omission for the management of these processes are brought to book.
We are also calling on the national departments, especially the Department of Basic Education, Cogta, the Department of Public Works, the Public Service Commission, as well as National Treasury, to play their part in ensuring that they do the necessary monitoring to ensure that the normative standards that have been set are implemented. What we realised and what was clear was the fact that the processes, the procedures, the structures that are supposed to do the work exist, but that nobody monitors them.
In all these reports, we are requesting that the departments should give us feedback 60 days after today, in terms of what it is that they are doing, and thereafter, on a quarterly basis, because a number of these challenges cannot be solved at one go. It is going to be a process. So, we would want to satisfy ourselves or Parliament should satisfy itself on an ongoing basis that there is work that is being done, rather than to wait until the end of the financial year.
Because of these timeframes that we have set, we also want your office to assist in creating the necessary capacity to track the departments, in terms of compliance with timeframes. In the past we have realised that even if there are timeframes, there is no mechanism to track compliance, especially in terms of time.
We also want to say that the oversight model does talk to this issue. However, we think that there is a need for its practical implementation. That is how we, in the public accounts committee, will link up with the portfolio committee so that some of the issues that you know are raised in our report and by the Auditor-General that need in-year monitoring, are monitored, but I think there is a gap that needs to be looked at.
Lastly, we are happy that, at least, we are not dealing with these reports on the last day of the sitting of the House because committee work is central to the work of Parliament. We are happy that we are dealing with them when there is time.
Lastly, I want to thank my comrades in the committee as well as our committee staff, the secretaries and researchers for the hard work that they continue to do on behalf of Parliament. We want to present these reports to the House. Thank you. [Applause.]
I thank the hon Godi for the reports. I would like to make just two corrections. On the Order Paper for today, reports 1 and 2 refer to the report of the independent auditors. In fact, that should read the "Auditor-General", not "independent auditors". Thank you.
There was no debate.
The Chief Whip of the Majority Party: Speaker, i move -
That the Reports be adopted.
Declarations of vote:
Hon Speaker, hon members, earlier this week, my colleague Dr Dion George issued a statement. What it basically entailed was that the Standing Committee on Public Accounts, Scopa, needs to be reformed because the present holding of office bearers and officials to account is simply not working. The problem is that some hon Ministers failed to appear before the Scopa without any explanation. This is clearly not acceptable.
What is of further great concern is that the senior officials rotate at an alarming level between departments, and consultants are often paid exorbitant consulting fees. The question that needs to be asked is: Are rate and taxpayers getting value for money seen in the light of lack of service delivery in many urban and rural areas? [Interjections.]
May I be allowed to conclude. Some departments such as the Land Restitution Unit in the Department of Rural Development and Land Reform, among others, can be categorised as dysfunctional, and this present state of affairs cannot be allowed to carry on. The DA urges Parliament to really reform this very important committee. I thank you. [Applause.]
Speaker, on behalf of the Congress of the People, we would like to congratulate the Public Accounts Committee on the very thorough work done in that committee. We believe that, steadily, they are putting the screws on some of the public officials who believe that they can get away with poor administration and irregular practices in the department. As soon as the irregular practices are discovered, they can just move to another lucrative job within the Public Service.
Clearly, what is of significance is that some of them will have to start paying back. I am referring to the Department of Co-operative Governance and Traditional Affairs' report, where the committee recommended that the accounting officer should ensure that monies are recovered from employees who were responsible for incurring the identified fruitless and wasteful expenditure.
However, we would also like to add our voice to another approach to ensure executive accountability. It has become an absolute trend that the Public Accounts Committee is battling to have the executive political heads of the departments hauled before that committee. They simply do not go. Instead they send in the heads of departments and in the end, when the seat becomes too hot, the officials responsible for the financial mismanagement just move on.
All executive members are accountable to this House. They are accountable to all the committees in this House, and we will have to look at our role in Parliament, at how to ensure that recommendations of the Public Accounts Committee also go to portfolio committees so that they can enforce steps taken and intervene timeously. Thank you. [Applause.]
Hon Speaker, as the chairperson of the Standing Committee on Public Accounts, the hon Themba Godi, has indicated, Scopa is tabling ten reports for your consideration today. However, eight of the reports deal with financial audits of various government departments and entities, and two of them are for performance audits.
It is unfortunate that none of the eight financial audits received a clean audit opinion. The Department of Public Works received a disclaimer and the Road Traffic Management Corporation received an adverse opinion. These are two of the worst audit outcomes possible.
A common characteristic of the financial audits is the high level of unauthorised and irregular expenditure. Another concern is the lack of proper asset management, and this is particularly the case in Rural Development and Land Reform and Public Works.
Our experience in Scopa shows that with the right leadership, internal controls, and administrative and financial skills, it is possible to turn the situation around and receive a clean audit. This has been the case with Science and Technology that has a history of clean audits while the situation at Home Affairs and Defence has been completely turned around for the better.
In this regard, we applaud the strong stance taken by the Minister of Public Enterprises, the hon Malusi Gigaba, who has recently dissolved the board of SA Express because they could not produce proper financial statements.
The two performance audits deal with the infrastructure delivery processes at the Department of Health and Department of Basic Education.
A cross-cutting concern is the slow planning process with regard to infrastructure; and the committee calls for a specific policy that deals with the infrastructure delivery process together with guidelines to be developed as a matter of urgency.
In both departments, some contracts were awarded to contractors that did not have the necessary skills to execute certain projects. It is important that the Construction Industry Development Board, CIDB, register its consultants to determine the contractor's capacity before bids are awarded. Of great concern is the late payment of contractors who are then unable to pay the workforce and suppliers on time. This leads to service delivery being compromised.
Scopa looks forward to further engagement on these financial audit outcomes and, in particular, to further engage on infrastructure delivery. The ANC urges you to support the reports. I thank you. [Applause.]
Speaker, these reports before us today indicate the major problems that are confronting the country. We agree with the ANC that they also indicate that the system is effective when it is detecting and exposing these problems. That part of the system has proven to be successful. What needs to be proven to be equally successful is the part of the system that must address and redress the problems that have been highlighted.
We can not afford to receive another set of similar reports here in this House next year.
The questions and challenges that these reports place before the government relate to the extent of the reaction of the government towards everything that has been highlighted as being wrong. There is a need for draconian reactions that would indicate that what has been going on this far cannot continue to happen.
From our side, we would like to see an exemplary punishment, exemplary actions, and actions against those that have the capacity to educate a thousand, because we cannot afford a repetition of these malpractices time and again.
The time of being good guys, the time to condone this and accept is over. We need to turn the page in order to change the natural psychology so that it can change the way things are being done. We plead with the government to turn the page and be more responsible, more accountable and more reactive towards every wrongdoing that has been exposed in these reports. Thank you. [Applause.]
Motion agreed to.
Reports accordingly adopted.