Hon Chairperson, this is just a comment: An hon member wanted to lend me his tie because I am not wearing one. This T-shirt is in support of Eskom in its energy-saving campaign.
I have just two main issues. The first is that I hope, as we proceed to do our work, that this work of the department will not be turned into a political football. It is critical that all of us understand this principle. That is why I will not respond to some of the political comments which have been made as I would normally do. It is critical for us to put our heads together to improve the delivery of services to our people.
Secondly, there is a requirement by other committees in Parliament - not only this one. All portfolio committees come to us and brief us about this department. This is something which does not happen with any other department. Therefore we will have to work in partnership with Parliament to ensure that we improve the system of governance. Bickering around the issues we are dealing with will not help the nation.
Then we come to the issue which has been raised: Whether this department is necessary. Well, it depends. If you are in government you may decide to abolish it and nothing will happen. But I can tell you, from our experience now, all nations and all governments in the world, particularly in developing countries, are beginning to go the route we are going. That is why we are called from time to time to discuss things with them - what we are doing and how we are doing it. Therefore, we think it was a good decision for the President to have identified this as a weakness in the administration.
With regard to our reports, let me start with the issue of the Act. We are building a new system. There is a lot of debate on evaluation theory out there by international academics. People are still experimenting with a number of issues they need to deal with. We are part of that debate. It would be wrong for us to want to put into legislation systems things which are not tested, because to undo them, once they are set in place, is a problem. That is why, when forming policies, we pilot them first, confirm the theory, make sure that every system is in place. And, at that point in time, we begin to roll them over to other areas of implementation.
We think we are not far from concluding that process. Allow us to go through that process, because the moment you put in place a piece of legislation, you are going to tie yourself up in a system which may collapse at a later stage without your knowing. As one of the members said: Problems cannot be solved by using the same thinking that led to the problem. You have to do it differently. I think that was a good way to address that.
Normally there is confusion around the terminology and processes we are engaged in - oversight, monitoring, evaluation, supervision, auditing, and I can name other activities that are there. It is important for us to understand that all the institutions we are referring to - the Auditor- General, the Public Service Commission, the department of this and that - have their own functions and we don't have to duplicate them. The police deal with corruption. This one deals with that. We don't have to duplicate the same functions. That is why our role is very specific, and we work in a co-ordinated manner with all the role-players who are dealing with these issues.
We have not been doing evaluations because you only evaluate after you have monitored. Obviously, there is still a debate in the academic world among professionals in that for every programme you do you must start by evaluating first, then you implement, then you monitor, and then you evaluate again. It is a debate that is still there; it has not been concluded.
With regard to evaluation processes, we don't want to use our own personnel to do the evaluation of critical issues. That is why we do internal evaluations; we do moderation; we also do external moderation and evaluation of processes and programmes. So, the reports we produce must be credible and must be trusted by anybody - not only ourselves, but even by international institutions. That is why we have to work in partnership.
With regard to the issue of the NYDA and their salaries, I'm not sure how long we must continue to answer these questions. The salaries of the NYDA have been authenticated by the Treasury. When the NYDA applied, we went to the Treasury and asked if the salaries were appropriate. After doing due diligence, the Treasury agreed. If we don't trust our own institutions that we have established, what more do you want? What is it that you want to do? That is why we proceeded in that way.
I now come to the role of the Chapter 9 institutions. Let's allow them to do their work. We are working in partnership with them. We said in our report that part of the work we were going to do was to monitor the implementation of the recommendations of the Chapter 9 institutions as part of assisting Parliament to accomplish its task of oversight - and we are going to do that. But we need to leave them to do their work without interference from us, or we should not try to do their work ourselves.
There are two issues we need to look at with regard to our budget - that is the programme's budget and the personnel budget. The first issue is yes, in theory there may be a disproportionate allocation between personnel and programmes. But, at the same time, there is also a disproportionate allocation between the outcome of the work we are doing and the budget of the department. If you look at the amount of work we have on our hands and at the amount of progress we are making, you will realise that it's completely disproportionate to the budget allocation that we have. So we have more work in terms of outcome, but a smaller budget to work with. I think we need to look at this in a holistic way without having to focus on one small issue. [Applause.] On the issue of unemployment, it's not a football to play with. We are facing a very serious problem, not only as a country, but as the world. That is why the International Labour Organisation is holding a conference this month to discuss, amongst other things, youth unemployment worldwide.
Now, it doesn't help us to want to blame the NYDA for job creation. They are not meant to create jobs. [Interjections.] The NYDA was created by legislation of this Parliament. At the moment we are sitting with an NYDA which does not have a board. The board has expired. Parliament must finalise the board of the NYDA. The NYDA's role is defined in terms of the law passed by this Parliament, not by the executive, not by the youth. It was passed by us here in Parliament for it to operate. I think we must go back and look at that law and see to it that we understand what the role of the NYDA is. [Interjections.] It is not job creation.
The last issue I would like to address is that we will deal with most of the issues as we go along. We are still going to get to the President's budget, when we are going to debate some of the issues that have not been covered here. I can guarantee you that the reports we produce will be available on the website, but they have to go through Cabinet first. We have to follow the processes. They will go through Cabinet. Once Cabinet has discussed them, looked at the remedial action we are taking, they will be available to the public, as some of them are available now in the public domain. Thank you very much. [Applause.]
Debate concluded.