Chairperson, comrades and hon members, I am privileged to present to the House the first report of the Standing Committee on Public Accounts, Scopa, being the first one for the fourth Parliament.
It will be recalled that it was in the third Parliament that the convention to have debates on the Scopa reports when they come before the House was started. The intention of debating is not to grandstand, nit-pick or engage in party politics around the issues in the report, but solely to use the platform of the House to highlight the important work that Scopa does as a committee of Parliament, and as a chance to enhance public awareness thereof.
In the third Parliament, we had consolidated within the committee this perspective which we have already spoken about in this committee. We believe that this does go a long way in enhancing our work. We are still of the view that more could and should be done to place Scopa in its proper position as a protector of the public purse, and we believe that the fourth Parliament has that unique opportunity and responsibility to finally close the cold and bitter chapter of the second Parliament arising out of the challenges around the arms deal.
Chief Whip, in your absence, and all parties in this House, I want to thank you on behalf of the committee for having taken the first step in the direction of issues of time allocation, as well as speakers. I'm sure that we will bring to your consideration other issues of relevance in due course.
Today, we are presenting before the House the report of the Auditor-General on a performance audit of service delivery at police stations and the ten thousand one hundred and eleven, generally known as 10111, the call centres of the SA Police.
We are in engagement with the police management on the report, and therefore this report before the House does not only reflect what the Auditor-General said in his report, but also takes into account the responses from police management during the hearing, as well as additional information they sent to us after the hearing.
I must state that the police, from the time of the then national commissioner, Jackie Selebi, have always responded timeously to any request for additional information. This has greatly assisted our work.
The overall picture that emerges form this report shows weaknesses and omissions that could have been avoided. Except for sector policing, not all the areas of challenge pointed to a lack of policy or procedural guidelines, but to a lack of implementation and effective management or supervision. This is a recurrent theme, not only for the police, but throughout the Public Service.
We are certain that if the recommendations that are contained in this report are implemented, the weaknesses and the concerns raised by the Auditor-General will be eliminated.
The issues identified by the Auditor-General and contained in this report deal with important issues of police work like sector policing; vehicle management, which includes the fitting and functioning of the automated vehicle location system, repairs of vehicles, control weaknesses with regard to vehicle registers, keys and garaging authorities; training, that is in-service training for police officers; community service centres; lack of compliance with the obligations imposed by the Domestic Violence Act of 1998 and National Instruction 7/1999; the issuing of bulletproof vests to officers; and the optimal functionality of the 10111 call centres.
I'm sure that my comrades in the committee will elaborate on the substance of the issues and, most importantly, the recommendations.
Lastly, the last paragraph of our report imposes timeframes. The accounting officer must submit to the National Assembly, within 60 days of this report being adopted by the House, a report on progress made in implementing these recommendations.
The issue of timeframes is going to be a permanent feature in all our reports to ensure that departments take our recommendations seriously. The responsibility, beyond today, lies with the Speaker's Office to ensure that it has the requisite capacity and systems to track resolutions adopted by this House.
I therefore present to the House Scopa's first report for adoption. I thank you. [Applause.]