Chairperson, I am ready for your call, as a cadre that is always ready for combat. As a choir conductor, I am standing in front of you today to give you a report regarding the harmony of the choir across the length and breadth of this country. [Laughter.]
We have taken a bold and decisive step on the decision to embark on a campaign called Operation Clean Audit 2014. This campaign is part of a broader clean-up campaign, which is aimed at ensuring that we are able to move forward as a country. It stands on four legs. The first leg is Operation Clean Audit 2014.
The second leg is clean cities, towns, townships and villages. This campaign is aimed at ensuring that we turn waste into wealth; that we call waste a raw material and not waste.
The third leg is debt collection, which is aimed at ensuring that this country will mobilise its people to be good citizens. Municipalities, as we speak, are owed over R53 billion. Our people are in the debt traps of loan sharks and that is why we are saying that our people must be able to manage their debt and that government is able to pay municipalities. The last leg is infrastructure backlogs and local economic development. Every municipality in South Africa must be able to do an audit around service delivery backlogs and they must also be able to quantify these backlogs. That is what we call, overall, a clean-up campaign standing on four legs.
Operation Clean Audit 2014 will certainly contribute to building a clean government. This campaign pierces the heart of corruption, fraud and mismanagement in terms of finances, and at the same time it is able to free up financial resources for service delivery.
We are counting on you, as an important institution, to represent our people. We will also ensure that, as we go forward, we report on the road we have traversed and the programmes ahead.
We launched this campaign on 16 July 2009 in Boksburg, Ekurhuleni Metro, in the Gauteng province. Among the people who attended this campaign were members of this august House, members of the NCOP, provincial legislatures, premiers, MECs, HoDs, individuals from the private sector, government officials, some Cabinet colleagues, auditors-general, accountants-general, etc.
The launch was the beginning of the end as far as disclaimers, adverse opinions, and qualified audits in provinces and municipalities are concerned. The goal that we have is that by 2011 there should be no disclaimers or audit opinions.