Madam Deputy Speaker, we are very glad that you are raising that question about the skills. We are concluding the auditing of the shortage of skills in municipalities because the information and the data that were there were not too reliable. What is going to happen thereafter? We have engaged and we are engaging with the Department of the Public Service and Administration, the DPSA, to look at what they have done and where their engineers that they utilise are. Similarly, we are talking to engineering organisations and doing all that we think is important to be done.
We are looking at and engaging with the planning fraternity. We are also speaking to the Auditor-General. We were shocked and dismayed when we found that the Auditor-General had the capacity of over 900 finance people, who could be deployed in municipalities. These are people who are graduating and who are doing their final internships in the Auditor-General's office that we can use. I believe that in the short term, we have the skills. The issue is the deployment of skills and the utilisation of those skills going forward.
We are categorising municipalities because municipalities in South Africa are not on the same level, have not developed the same way, and their needs, conditions and objectives on the ground are not the same. Therefore, we must know which ones require extensive support and assistance, which ones require less support and so on. Having done that, we will then be able to say which ones we must deploy and what capacity is required. We believe that we are equal to the task. We will be able to do that and ensure that it is undertaken.
Provinces and districts might not have helped a lot or the help might have been varied and different, but we are doing these interventions at a national level as a short-term measure. We believe that provinces, in terms of the Constitution and the laws, are supposed to play the supportive role, the monitoring role and the intervention role when things are not going well. For now, we believe that we are going to address the issues that are being raised. Thank you.