Hon Chair, hon Deputy Minister, despite all these concerns by the Auditor-General, AG, there seems to be a problem because this "UIFE" as you call them are sky rocketed and they go up all the time, unauthorised expenditure, fruitless expenditure, irregular expenditure and so on and so forth. It would seem that these officials act with impunity because there is no action that is taken against those who are responsible. As I said, they have styled
it now. I only knew UIF as the Unemployment Insurance Fund, but now it is called "unauthorised irregular and fruitless expenditure".
What are the practical actions that the department is taking to ameliorate the situation?
The DEPUTY MINISTER OF CO-OPERATIVE GOVERNANCE AND TRADITIONAL
AFFAIRS: Hon Chairperson, I think in the first instance it is important to indicate the approach that says we need to enhance the support that we provide to municipalities particularly in relation to those that do not have the requisite capability and capacity to recruit people that have the necessary skills and that is why we are implementing the district development model. So as a means intervention, I think in the first instance, we have a duty - both as provincial and national government to undertake our constitutional and obligation in terms of section 154 to provide the requisite support through appropriate institutional mechanism.
The second one is about ensuring through the performance management regulations but also through the database that I referred to earlier that we are able to identify areas and instances where such are acting with impunity in a manner that undermines the control
environment in the municipality and accountability and supply-chain management.
In essence, what we are saying hon Dodovu is that, it is important that through the database that we generate, we are able to identify those and we ensure that appropriate action takes place to ensure that those officials who are in contravention are held to account. In instance where municipalities do not take the appropriate action on time, it is also important that we work with our provincial counterparts so that appropriate actions is taken in reference to amongst others the earlier decision that was made by this Council to ensure that we are able to intervene timeously to facilitate that local government does not act in a manner that is in contravention of the regulations. Thank you very much.