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.]