House Chairperson, let me start by speaking about what hon Mnguni raised about Hollywood and Bollywood. He is a good contender for Parlywood. Maybe Parliament should have an act of Parlywood. I'm sure it will compete well with Isidingo.
Let's clarify this: The acting senior managers are not people from outside; they are from within the senior management. We could have, if we wanted to, just said, "This position is vacant; we don't have this particular position filled." But instead we gave those members in the senior management an opportunity to come up and experience what is to be a director-general, a chief operations officer and a deputy director-general. Therefore this creates an impression that there's a long string of acting when, in fact, there is none.
As I stand here today there are only two vacancies in senior management. If one listened carefully to what I said, this morning Cabinet confirmed two deputy director-general positions. The candidates for the director-general position have been interviewed. Their names are with the Department of Public Service and Administration, DPSA, and are on their way to Cabinet. That's three position. That leaves the position of the chief operations officer who resigned in February vacant. The deadline for applicants to apply for this post has passed. We hope that in the next week or two a panel will be set up with Ministers to actually interview the candidates for the chief operations officer position. That leaves one deputy director- general post of the Expanded Public Works Programme, EPWP, still vacant.
These are very able personalities from within senior management. I hope that we will see this in the light that these are very capable people. They have kept the ship on course. We haven't fallen off the bridge. These are our people that we are trying to promote and give exposure to. Let's not create an impression that they are acting and therefore they are not the same as the real McCoy. They are the real McCoy and I have confidence in them.
I thank members that spoke about the recapitalisation of the Independent Development Trust, IDT. I certainly think the IDT has done its role or played its part in the eradication of mud schools. But let me hasten to say that in my speech you will see that I spoke about concurrent functions. Building schools is not the work or the function of the national Department of Public Works. But because the IDT is the special kind of vehicle that it is, it is able to straddle national, provincial and local government. The IDT works at three different spheres and it also works across national departments.
This is why I feel very strongly that we need to do everything possible to ensure that the IDT is recapitalised, retained under Public Works and remains a special purpose vehicle. It can be used by other departments. It used by provincial and local governments. It built a beautiful building in Kokstad, which is my hometown, hon Rabotapi. I didn't spearhead it, but the local municipality asked the IDT to put up a good office building for them. If one goes to other areas one will see that it is building courts for Justice and Constitutional Development. In fact, it is operating so well and I'm a little bit worried that there will be opposition for the Department of Public Works, DPW, one of these days. Therefore we need to make sure that we recapitalise the IDT.
Yes, somebody mentioned the Public Improvement Commission, PIC; I think we need to think outside the box. The PIC is sitting with funding; the Industrial Development Corporation, IDC, is sitting with funding; and the Development Bank of Southern Africa, DBSA, is sitting with funding. Let's think outside the box and see how Public Works can access these funds so that we can address some of the issues that have been raised here. I'm happy to say, hon chairperson of the committee, that, in fact, the department is currently working on a model and it will share with the committee what our thinking is.
I want to come back to the point made by hon Mahlangu. We are not headless. I think all the people who are sitting there do have heads. [Laughter.] So they are not headless. Don't worry about that, we've kept the ship on course. They had an option to say, "Minister, we don't want to act in these positions." They could have done so. However, because they bought into the vision and mission of the Minister and serve their country with passion, they stood up and said, "Minister, there's a task ahead; we will do it for you."
I agree on the issue of Occupational Specific Dispensation, OSD. Recently we went to India; the Department of Public Works in India employed 7 000 professionals. We don't have as many professionals in our department as the people sitting behind me. Therefore we have got to make a decision. Is this a technical department or do we want a rental collection office? What is it that we want? That is the vision that is in our strategic plan when we begin to say we want to raise the bar, review, reshape and rejuvenate.
Niyandilandela maqabane? Uyandilandela, mhlekazi?
ILUNGU ELIHLONIPHEKILEYO: Ulahlekile.
UMPHATHISWA WEZEMISEBENZI YOLUNTU: Ulahlekile? (Translations of isiXhosa paragraphs follows.)
[Do you understand me comrades? Do you understand me, sir?