Mr Chairperson, I am glad the Deputy Minister appears to realise that if money is being improperly spent, there is no point in adding to the amount of money that is given.
I would like to know, firstly, what measures the department is putting in place to ensure that when money is spent on capital projects there is proper oversight. I draw the Deputy Minister's attention to the experience of the portfolio committee's recent oversight visit to the Free State, where the portfolio committee actually put a stop to two projects which were under way using inferior materials not approved by the SABS. In other words, there was no local oversight of the projects and money was being wasted in those two cases.
Secondly, what is the department doing to ensure that when misspending occurs, councillors and officials involved are held accountable? I say this because there is a great deal of misspending but very little action. So, it is no real surprise that misspending and corruption continue. If you take, for example, the case of the O R Tambo District Municipality in the Eastern Cape, where the mayor used district funds to purchase farms in KwaZulu- Natal and appointed her husband to manage them - which he did, badly - the mayor has now been promoted to MEC!
So, the third part of my question is: What kind of message does that send?