Hon House Chair, again with reservation, the appropriation of R544,7 million to cover unauthorised and overexpenditure is supported.
The DA is concerned about the fact that some of these deviations took place in the 1998-99 financial year, some 13 years ago, and are only now being presented for authorisation. Why has it taken so long?
Urgent action needs to be taken by the Standing Committee on Public Accounts, Scopa, to ensure that incidents such as these are dealt with speedily and that, where required, appropriate action is taken in order to ensure that a repetition of this does not occur.
The example of the military museums is a case in point. They should have been transferred to the department long ago. Of even more concern is the fact that the criteria for the approval of these deviations require that "appropriate disciplinary steps against officials are taken".
National Treasury assured the Select Committee on Appropriations that Scopa has dealt with this matter. However, they were not able to give the committee details of what disciplinary action was taken and against which officials or what the outcome of such action was.
The question also needs to be asked: How is the Department of Correctional Services able to fund overexpenditure on overtime in the 2008-09 financial year from its current financial year's budget? It seems that the budget for this department has been fattened up to compensate for the additional R483 million, or it is, in any event, a budget already full of fat that enables it to accommodate the additional R483,8 million.
There needs to be a very careful look at this department's budget in order to ensure that in future years any fat is removed and used for productive service delivery. I thank you, House Chair.
Bill agreed to in accordance with section 75 of the Constitution.