Madam Acting Speaker, all eyes are on education, apart from on fraud and corruption. As government, we have to wage certain wars. In KwaZulu-Natal, a new front has opened up, the front of receiving qualified audit reports, which the KwaZulu-Natal department of education has now received for two years running.
Budgets that are directed to departments are aligned to addressing the implementation of programmes, particularly in order to end the backlogs. However, there has been millions of rands' worth of fruitless and wasteful expenditure on the double-parking of educators and the creation of new posts in the organogram in the education sector in KwaZulu-Natal.
The MF's concern is what impact the restructuring and the surplus and displaced educators have on the qualified audit. Furthermore, what impact does the creation of new posts have on the provisioning of educators to schools in order to improve the learner-educator ratio? Who is responsible for this?
In spite of the backlogs, overspending is unacceptable. It would be interesting to know whether the reasons for receiving such qualified reports for the past two years are the same. If we are radically serious about dealing with the challenges of the department of education in KwaZulu- Natal, the perpetrators must be dealt with decisively. Disciplinary measures must accordingly be imposed. The monitoring and evaluation structures of government need to play their role. Furthermore, the MF is concerned about what has been done to rectify this situation, which has a devastating impact on taxpayers indeed. I thank you.