Deputy Minister, part of the reasons why the Department of Co- operative Governance and Traditional Affairs, CoGTA, failed in the past is the use of consultants by Minister Des Van Rooyen and Mr Jamnadas. Some of these consultants were appointed irregularly and some were even appointed to benefit those in power. Since your term started as the Deputy Minister, have you found the department competent enough to do the work or are you still using these consultants?
The DEPUTY MINISTER OF CO-OPERATIVE GOVERNANCE AND TRADITIONAL
AFFAIRS: Well, the government does continue to use consultants where skills are required to assist in relation to particular areas of skills and expertise that we might not have at that particular point in time. But with regard to the Community Work Programme in particular, I think it is important to indicate that we are talking about implementing agencies that will work on behalf of the department as an extension of the department to oversee the implementation of more than 4000 sides at which the Community Work Programme is being implemented.
So you do need some degree of external capacity that you source to implement such a massive programme with a number of sites that the programme is responsible for. Our view is that the utilisation of
consultants and external expertise should be done in a judicious manner, cognisant of the need to continuously build the necessary skills and capability in the department. Thank you very much.
Setswana: