The Acting Director-General of the Department of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries, Mr S Ntombela, in his opening remarks, informed the Committee that an invitation was sent to the provincial department. However, there was no provincial official present in the meeting. He mentioned that he only heard about the Ncera Farms Forensic Report for the first time when it was mentioned by the Committee during the Annual Report briefings in October 2012; as the report was never mentioned or discussed in any of the departmental management forums he attended. He mentioned that it was only then after his enquiry, that the report was sourced and subsequently tabled for discussion at the management level. He mentioned that key issues that he observed from the report were lack of governance and misconduct of departmental officials. He had instructed the relevant officials in the Department to look at the issues and on who was at fault in the process and come up with solutions. In this regard, the Department was also doing a feasibility study on what needs to be done. Currently, Ncera Farms (Pty) Ltd had no Board of Directors and the National Treasury's opinion on Ncera Farms (Pty) Ltd was that it was running at a loss. However, the long-term future of the entity will need a political decision.