Comrades and hon members, we are presenting, as they appear on the Order Paper, reports of the committee on the Department of Mineral Resources and the Department of Labour and its entities, the Sheltered Employment Factories, as well as Transnet and the Magalies, Bushbuckridge and Botshelo Water Boards. We are disappointed that the Department of Mineral Resources had a qualified audit. Although the Department of Labour's one was unqualified, it did have very significant emphasis of matter that warranted a hearing.
The findings that were issues of discussion between ourselves and them and that form part of the issues we've raised include poor accounting records; misstatements of receivables; lack of supporting documentation; non- collection or undercollection of revenue; noncompliance with regulatory requirements; contravention of supply chain management processes; and other issues. Part of our recommendations deal with the need to ensure that there are proper governance policies and systems, that proper record keeping systems are developed, implemented and monitored, and that there is compliance with regulatory requirements, as well as ensuring that appropriately skilled personnel are appointed, especially in the finance sections.
The entities called the Sheltered Employment Factories have remained and functioned as they were conceived many decades ago. However, we are happy that the current CEO, Silumko Nondwangu, seemed to have a proper understanding of the challenges and the transformatory trajectory that needs to be followed to change and turn around that institution. However, there are still a number of challenges, and we believe it will take some time to get it exactly where it's supposed to be.
There were challenges around issues of nondisclosure of certain items such as operating leases, poor accounting records, no supporting documentation, irregular expenditure, as well as fruitless and wasteful expenditure. These challenges also applied to Transnet and I think that there are issues around Transnet that we would definitely, as a committee, need to pursue, because some of the information that they gave to us during the hearing has subsequently been proven not to have necessarily been correct. We do believe that the need to strengthen internal controls and ensure monitoring of compliance with policy and procedures will be very important, not only for the Sheltered Employment Factories but also for Transnet. We are ensuring that disciplinary measures are taken against employees that have been responsible for irregular expenditure as well as fruitless and wasteful expenditure, which, in the case of Transnet, amounted to very high amounts, billions of rand.
As for the Water Boards, they all had qualified audits, and one is not certain whether there is a need for a policy review because certainly the capacity of some of these Water Boards to actually get things right is highly circumscribed, except for the Bushbuckridge Water Board, but not limited to it - the issues around going concern and the debt that the municipality has vis-a-vis the board. If that is not addressed, it will seriously threaten the ability of that board to function. But equally, if you look at the Botshelo Water Board you get a sense that some of the people at the helm of that water board really have no idea of what they are supposed to do and lack a sense of commitment towards ensuring that water services are provided to the communities. We have, in these reports, added the quarterly reporting requirements. Like I said on Tuesday, from our side as a committee we have planned carefully in terms of being able to pursue these timeframes. We will, however, still rely on the Speaker's Office to ensure that decisions taken by this House, especially around timeframes, are respected. I do want to add, however, that as a committee we are equally committed to ensuring that we bring before the House for adoption, and also for debate and discussion, reports of departments and entities that got unqualified audits, including those that got clean audits, because the assumption is that we don't have departments and even entities that perform well, that have clean audits. We would want to bring them to the House in order that they be adopted and debated, so that we can start to see what is the balance between those who are doing well and those who are not doing well.
Lastly, I would also like to add that we believe, as Scopa, that the need to have a structured way of co-operation between ourselves and the other committees can have a positive bearing in ensuring that some of the challenges that we have identified are addressed, not only by ourselves but also in the interaction of the departments and the entities with the other committees. I want to present the reports for adoption by the House.