Chair, before I even answer the question, the hon member has decided he is going to oppose. But anyway, I will answer the question.
First of all, until about two months ago the Department of Home Affairs had an acting chief financial officer, who had been seconded from somewhere. Now we have a permanent chief financial officer who is going to look after the finances of the department. Secondly, it is very clear that the major problem in terms of the qualification comes from the revenue. The revenue is collected, but it is not reconciled. So we are training our people in the offices that they must work almost like a bank, that every day they must say, this is the service that was requested, this is the amount that goes with this service, and reconcile every day. If they do that, we will be on our way to improving the financial management.
The second area of qualification was around asset management. The assets had been recorded, but the problem came when assets were moved. The problem was partly that the asset management was centralised. You cannot sit in Pretoria and be responsible for assets that are sitting in Pietermaritzburg. In every office there must be somebody in charge of assets, who will account for the assets in every office. But if you centralise it, it is very difficult to maintain good management of those assets. So we are doing that, but I think hon members must understand that we are training people to do this. It is not going to be an overnight thing. We are hoping that it won't be long before we also have a clean audit, but it is going to take a few months to do that.
I am just being honest with you, because I believe that I have to answer questions honestly and give the House an honest perspective. But it is regrettable that the hon member didn't even want to hear the answer before making up his mind. Thank you. [Applause.]