Madam Chairperson of the House, the UCDP is seriously concerned about the R615 million that has been misused in departments dealing with their employees in business. This spells out the following: firstly, that the tender allocation system of the departments encourages fraudulent activities. It is a system that has to be revisited; not every section in every department should allocate tenders, but there should at least be a division that deals with this.
The second issue is that we realise that the deputy directors-general of departments are not even aware of what is happening. The report that we are debating today was issued in 2006, and they were called in in August 2009. Some of them were hearing about these resolutions for the first time. That is why I support my hon colleagues who say that Ministers have also to appear before Scopa in order to account, to know what is happening in their departments and to see how their deputy directors-general are failing the departments.
Another point is that the financial management system in many departments is still wanting. We wonder about the chief financial officer, if there is an internal auditor, if there is an audit committee in every department that is supposed to be working on these issues long before the Auditor- General picks them up.
Resolutions by Scopa in this House, which have been adopted, are not taken seriously by most of the departments. Thank you, hon Chair. [Time expired.] [Applause.]