WC Provincial Treasury Audit Outcomes & 2019/20 Annual Report

Meeting report

The Chairperson opened the virtual meeting, welcoming everyone to the meeting and said that the purpose of this meeting was to deliberate on the 2019/20 annual report of the Western Cape Provincial Treasury, together with the Gambling and Racing Board.

[The Committee also had a discussion with the Auditor-General of South Africa and the Audit Committees of both entities, but this was not open to the public and will not be included in the report.]

Mr David Savage, Head of Department (HOD): Provincial Treasury, said that the 2019/20 financial year was a year of change. The Provincial Treasury was focused on measures to ensure fiscal sustainability and financial prudence as well as good governance for the province through its integrated strategy. There was new leadership that joined the Treasury. In the fourth quarter of the financial year, the department was affected by the pandemic – operationally and in its broader fiscal, economic and social context. He said that the 2019/20 financial year was a successful one as evidenced by the report. This shows their resilience in times of adversity and their willingness to lead change where necessary.

Discussion

Ms D Baartman (DA) congratulated the Provincial Treasury on a clean audit. She asked for clarity on the constrained fiscal outlook due to the declining economic environment as well as the regression in supply-chain management (SCM) performance due to conflicting application and interpretation of national SCM prescripts.

She asked the Board and the CEO about their justifications on the deviation that was made.

Mr D America (DA) congratulated the Department and the Gambling Board for their unqualified audit (this mistake was corrected by the next speaker on Mr America’s behalf). He asked the Gambling Board if there is a policy for the employees of the Gambling Board which prohibits them from accepting gifts, like the policy that exists for its members. If such a policy does not exist, is there a gifts registry for gifts accepted by the employees?

Ms N Nkondlo (ANC) congratulated Provincial Treasury on a clean audit. She asked Provincial Treasury for clarification on the resolutions on page 128 of the report as this matter had been included with the matter of the Broad-Based Black Economic Empowerment (BBBEE) policy. She asked what is the relationship of the strategy that is being mentioned [the BBBEE legislation] and the Preferential Procurement Regulations (PPR). Does the PPR indicate deviation on particular elements of the BBBEE legislation? If so, was such a deviation authorised?

She asked the Gambling Board if the vacancy within the Board has been filled and she was interested to know if that position has been used to address the gender-related issues of the Board. She noted that the Board has 16 meetings throughout the year and asked if this means that the Board is highly involved in the operations of the organisation.

Responses

Western Cape Provincial Treasury

Mr Savage thanked the Members for the acknowledgment and said that it is a team effort from the entire Department. He said that they go into detail, with regards to the risk, in their budget document. These are evolving risks, especially in the current environment. Their fiscal outlook in the year under review was constrained by global factors and structural economic constraints in the South African economy. This has some effect on provincial revenue and national revenue that could create downward pressure on transfer receipts. This has an effect on provincial revenue given that the bulk of revenue is from transfers from National Government. The transmission effect is through the effect on national revenue that create downward pressure on transfer receipts and also upward pressure in terms of demand for services provided to the public. The demand side pressure and the revenue pressures have to be monitored closely and this is the basis for the ongoing discussions with National Government as part of the intergovernmental fiscal relations. This pressure can also be transmitted through regulatory interventions that raise some of the costs of services.

He said that the risks on regression and supply chain management are a heavily regulated environment. Given that that there is a single framework that governs procurement across multiple service delivery areas, there are a multitude of issues regarding interpretation. The Provincial Treasury engages with various role-players, but particularly the Office of the Chief Procurement Officer (OCPO) on the regulatory framework for supply chain management; otherwise matters of interpretation can lead to negative audit outcomes that are not necessarily related to impact of the expenditure themselves, but just the procedural compliance within the regulatory environment due the interpretation of the issues. They have worked closely with the OCPO in identifying areas in both municipal and provincial government and outlined in detail the challenges and the steps that can be taken to clarify the environment. They have also worked with their stakeholders to try and find an alternative dispute resolution mechanism.

Regarding the invention from the Committee to discuss the matter outstanding as itemised on page 128, he said that they have not managed to find a date for that engagement as yet. However, they are ready and willing to engage on this matter on an ongoing basis. Concerning the BBBEE matters on pages 136-138, there are legislative and compliance issues that have been a persistent concern for the province; that has been subsequently subject to judicial findings.

Ms Nadia Ebrahim, Director: Supply Chain Management, Western Cape Provincial Treasury, said that the PPP regulations in 2017 made certain adjustments to prior versions, one of which was looking at the 30% set aside for requirements for subcontracting and also introduced new requirements on pre-qualifications on different categories of suppliers, as well as certain administrative functions that are in the supply chain process. When the Western Cape looked and commented on the regulations in 2015/16, they highlighted this with National Treasury in terms of what the impact would be, particularly on the earlier versions that began to look at upping certain threshold limits. Many of their comments were taken up and adjusted, particularly as they targeted on what premium would be affected by the percentages of the threshold. But many of their concerns were not taken up to the point where when you look at the regulations, it did impact on the extent it would cost government on empowerment initiatives. They also proposed solutions on how they would be dealing with that and demonstrated the extent to which the province had implemented these requirements through direct procurement. When looking at the representation of the information that they collectively had in the province, their 2015/16 budget in terms of the 26% procurement, government tenders in the Western Cape actually benefited 86% of the target audience.

They also suggested that when looking at particular initiatives, it needs to be backed up by a level of understanding about what the market has to deliver, and there should be a focus for their bigger contracts so they can actually look at empowerment initiatives in a very constructive way that could add value. One of the initiatives that they have using this model is their security tender that is structured in a way that looks at job creation and black owned companies. They also suggested the implementation of an economic procurement policy. Cabinet approved an economic procurement policy as well as other initiatives that came to the floor. They also used their systems, which is the procurement system, as well as the Western Cape supplier database as a hub in doing the necessary analytics to see who they are dealing with. Subsequently, it has mitigated the risk of the court decision. Within the next year, they do not necessarily have to find an alternative mechanism to balance the socio-economic objectives as it is already part of the supply chain systems. She said that the jury is still out on that one as National Treasury has not indicated what they intend on doing. The next step from a legal perspective is to look at it constitutionally. They have indicated intent to do so but they have not seen anything come to the floor. They are still on the safe side with how the province applies it but the municipalities might be at a slight risk given that they have different systems of application.

Gambing and Racing Board

Mr David Lakay, the Chairperson of the Gambling and Racing Board, said that they are not too ecstatic about the unqualified audit with findings, as their target is to also get a clean audit. He said that with the deviation justification, he does not think one could call it a justification. The CFO will take the Committee through that process of how the deviation arose.

He said that the manager for human capital will answer the question on the policy of gifts for employers, as raised by Mr America. He indicated that he will deal with some of the matters that Ms Nkondlo raised. The first matter raised by Ms Nkondlo was on vacancies on the Board. He said that that as he speaks, the Board is fully populated and in December he was reappointed as member and chairperson of the Board for another year. However, as of 31 January 2021, a resignation of a member will become effective. Ms Nyathi resigned for personal reasons and this will create a new vacancy on the Board. In May, there will be further expiry on a member’s term.

Concerning the number of Board meetings, he said that categorically the Board is not involved operationally. Because of the regulatory landscape, licenses for operators expire on a continuous basis. These licenses are issued for a period of one year and during different parts of the year. One could thus have licenses expiring every month. There are processes which the licensing department of the Board deals with. These renewals are approved by the Board on a monthly basis, except for December. The Board thus has routine meetings that take place from January to November every year. The other meetings that are scheduled regularly are in preparation for the annual performance plan, as well as compiling and reviewing the annual report. There are annual meetings that the Board needs to schedule. Last year, because of the findings that they had, there was a special board meeting raised to debate the reports from the auditors and to get information from the executive on the findings and to determine how that will be dealt. There was also a special meeting that the Board needed to deal with the external audit support. There will be at least 13 regular meetings throughout the year and theses are not operationally linked.

Regarding the loss of trust question by Ms Nkondlo, he said that it is a very serious risk for the Board bearing an independent regulator. The Board sometimes makes decisions that impact licenses on other matters. The Board also acts within its powers as given by the various Acts. There are times where the Board will discuss matters with Provincial Treasury concerning the rollout of further opportunities and engaging with the Treasury, one must be very careful that these engagements are not perceived as interfering with the mandate of the Board. If this is perceived, the operators will say that the Board is not independent and that it takes its instructions from another source. This is the risk that is being raised and they need to deal with it and ensure that any decision that the Board takes is independent of any other party.

Ms Zoe Siwa, the CFO, WC Gambling and Racing Board, said that the deviation was based on the honest belief that the office was unable to execute the tenders as it related to the compilation of the bid, the bid evaluation in terms of specifications in local content, and the project management based on the size of the entity and the fact the Board only has one supply management official. In terms of the Treasury regulation which is applicable to this case, it says that if it is impractical to invite competitive bids in a specific case, the accounting officer or the accounting authority may procure the required goods and services by other means – provided that the reasons for deviating from inviting competitive is recorded and approved by the accounting officer and accounting authority. Further requirements from National Treasury state that in the event one deviate above R1 million, you need to report such deviation to the Auditor-General and applicable Provincial Treasury within ten days. The report must include the description if the goods or services, the name of the supplier, the amount involved and the reason for the deviation.

In terms of the controls and process, the correct process was followed. The reasons were recorded and approved by the Board and the Board also notified the AG and Provincial Treasury within ten working days about the deviation as it exceeded R1 million. The problem they had was that impracticality is not defined by any supply management prescripts. National Treasury instructions provide examples in only two cases, which are urgency or emergency or sole supplier. However, the Provincial Treasury instructions provide instances where it is appropriate to follow limited bidding under which the option followed by the Board is included. The problem, therefore, was not the controls or processes; it was the AG that did not think that the reasons provided were adequate to deviate. The reasons that they decided to deviate and not go out on tender is because the complexity and the extent of the project was unforeseen at the inception of the project, not due to improper planning, but due to the fact that management did not know the extent of the work to be performed.

The nature of the procurement was unusual for the Board, based on the Board’s usual operating activities. This procurement was needed because the Board relocated from 68 Orange to 100 Fairway and they had to fit the office with new office furniture for the staff members. During each engagement with the service provider it became evident that the Board would require assistance with the open tender process in terms of the compilation of the bid, the bid execution as well as the project management. Based on the nature and magnitude of the project, these competencies were not available in-house. The Board was also not a position to either train or recruit people in the time available as it already took about three months for the service provider to develop the specifications on which the furniture was going to be manufactured. It would have costed the Board more to appoint another service provider to study the layup and specification, which represent a professional work product; the risk had to be transferred from one professional to another.

The training of people was also not feasible as this was a once-off requirement. The Executive Committee, which forms the bid committee, does not have knowledge on the manufacturing of the office furniture. From the outset of the project, it was not management’s expectation that the project would be so complex in nature. They also considered the risk of improper evaluation of bids in line with the local content requirements as the office of the Board does not have the necessary skills or background to evaluate them. Due regard was given to wasteful and fruitless expenditure if the tender was incorrectly executed and in the event the Board did not receive value for money. The decision to deviate from a competitive bidding process was done in the context of the overall interest of the Board.

Ms Sweetness Sixubane, Human Resources, WC Gambling and Racing Board, said that the Board has a policy in place and it applies to all employees. Employees cannot accept any gift from the industry or their stakeholders. They have registry for all incoming gifts and return of the gifts. The industry is also aware of the existing policy, so they are not receiving any gifts. 

Ms Siwa said that they do have a register or policy for gifts. They are, however, not allowed to receive any gifts and they return those gifts as soon as possible.

Further discussion

Ms Nkondlo said that what she hears is that a differentiated application of the BBBEE provisions in the province is a function of a series of engagement with National Treasury as a province and as Ms Ebrahim states, many of their concerns were not taken as she has alluded to this. By design, the Department took a differentiated approach in the implementation as there were gaps in some of the definitions.

She asked for clarification on the court process and the intended appeal that was mentioned by Ms Ebrahim. Was there a case on the matter and was the court case between Provincial Treasury and National Treasury? There is a constitutional question here that needs to be resolved. When there are contestations about the law, there are processes for amendments and reviews. This is one area that she wanted to understand.

One of the issues of BBBEE compliance has been a sore point and most of the departments of the province. She is raising this particular question so that she can clarify that at this point in the Western Cape there are particular elements of BBBEE that are waivered and the process of doing so is this particular process. That is why she is asking if there has been a court case that has decided that Western Cape can do things differently.

She noted that the CFO of the Gambling Board spoke about the specifications of the furniture project that took three months; she asked if the Board appointed a service provider for developing the specifications of the type of furniture is the same service provider that completed the job. One of the things she is hearing is that some of the issues are because SCM capacity issues within the Board led to them making particular decision. In the future, how will these issues be resolved?

Ms Ebrahim said that the Western Cape government did not break any of the preferential procurement regulations or the Act. They stayed true to the Act because it actually empowers the scope of the regulations. The regulations were requiring that certain special conditions are dealt with in a particular way within the 80/20 and the 90/10 points system and the Western Cape did stay true to those requirements. The regulations in 2017 allowed certain discretionary provisions where it would say if feasible to do so, an organ of state or the accounting officer may do certain things, provided that condition A, B and C are met. They applied their discretion in a particular way. They stayed to the letter of the Act and in terms of how they went about doing so, they built a business case. They went through an entire legal review – soliciting the comments of legal services and having various outside legal opinions. They provided this to National Treasury. They also took this to Cabinet and Cabinet made a decision. Once that decision was made they put that into their instruction medium and guided their departments to apply in a uniform, standardised way. They have not had any audit issues on the application of the BBBEE regulations. One of the other areas in which they had an issue with was local content and with this one there was no discretion provided in the regulations. The Western Cape had to apply that as it was. In terms of the case law, they chose not to challenge that in Court. It was not the Western Cape that took National Treasury to court, but it was other role players.

Ms Siwa said that the Board only has one supply chain management official. The difficulty that they have is that the tenders that they normally have, such as the internal audit tender, can be over a period of ten years; they are currently in a  tender for the licensing automation project, and with both of these project they have expertise and knowledge in the Board. Their concern was not executing the tender correctly and that was the main reason they did not have those enterprise in-house. They advertised for a service provider or consultant to assist the Board in getting the specifications on which the office furniture was then going to be manufactured. They asked the potential providers to attend a compulsory site meeting and then five service providers attended. They indicated that the intention of the enquiry is to develop specifications in order to be advertised publicly for the manufacturing of the furniture. It was always the Board’s intention to go out on tender as they expected that the procurement of the office furniture would exceed R500 000. When the enquiry closed, they only received two quotations. One quotation was from the service provider that they appointed and the other was from someone who did not attend the compulsory site meeting.

On the question of what controls will be implemented to prevent the reoccurrence of such instances in the future, she responded that this is an isolated issue, but should the Board not have in-house expertise for procurement in the future, the office would then identify that as the start of the project and then ensure that they have assistance throughout the full cycle of the procurement. They will also consult with the supply chain in the province to ensure that they are on the right track and comply with the relevant requirements and then going forward, they will attempt to limit limited bidding as far as possible. This is the first time that the Board deviated in terms of where they incurred more than R500 000; so this is not a normal practice for the Board.

Mr Lakay said that with regards to the capacity, he does not think they should become unduly concerned that they do not have the capacity. This was an unusual circumstance. Should this instance arise again, they will seek the necessary expertise on a consultation basis for that particular project. There is no real need to bring in additional staff. 

The Chairperson prompted the Members to move to section E and raise questions with regards to that section.

Ms Baartman asked the Provincial Treasury what exactly they are safeguarding as R45 000 has been allocated to safeguarding and security, and there was previously no such amount allocated. She asked for clarity on the debt written off for the SA Revenue Service (SARS). Is the money owed to Provincial Treasury and being written off because SARS did not pay them? Why is this being written off? On page 92 of the annual report, it shows that they have collected about R694 million in terms of the taxes and levies and as the Provincial Treasury they have given the Board R38 million as a government grant, which is not too bad when one looks at the return on investment. The suppliers and employees’ cost are R46 million and R17 million, which totals R63 million. The Board then paid them back, in terms of the revenue fund, an amount of R690 million. She then asked where the R4 million difference went as she thought that the taxes went the social programmes and levies went to operating expenses. She further asked why the taxes for horse racing have increased but the levies have decreased. Based on the 2019/20 amounts for the three items on pages 134, what is the estimated difference in income, positive or negative, in levies, specifically between the new draft bill and the collection in rand value in 2019/20 respectively?

The Provincial Treasury’s annual report in part E, on page 217, it refers to the income from the Board, but in their books it said on that page that they are getting R668 million. She asked for clarity on how she should understand the R668 million that the Treasury gets in the annual report and the R694 million that they get in the Board’s report.

Ms Nkondlo asked if there are any legal fees that are budgeted for. On page 147 of the annual report, under the irregular expenditure, this particular matter has been with the Board for some time. If one looks at the cases which have been under investigation, she sees that in one of the cases where there was a matter of deviation, there was a decision made not to disclose the amount in the 2019 financial statements. She asked if this was the decision of the Board and if so, why they did so. Having looked at this matter in 2017/18, she asked what the reason for the delay is, as the matter is still being presented to Provincial Treasury for condonement.

For the Provincial Treasury, she noted that there a 23.8% spend on training and development. She asked what would be the context in this regard, given that they have such a hardworking team and obviously they had budgeted for this training. Is it because certain people did not attend the training? What is the story behind this? There is also an indication of late procurement; what could have been the reason for this?

She further asked for clarity on page 218, under goods and services. In terms of agency costs, they have actually shot up more than 100% from the previous financial year. The irregular expenditure has increased from R11.39 million to R30.17 million. She asked if this should be a matter of concern in terms of the irregular expenditure in the Department.

On the municipal transfers, she noted that there is mention of five municipalities that the money could not be transferred to. She asked for clarification on the amount spent versus the unspent.

Ms Siwa said that the taxes and levies collected were the R693 million and the taxes and levies distributed were R690 million. At year end they still needed to pay the difference to Provincial Treasury and therefore the amount that they owed was included in amounts payable. The Draft Bill does not have any impact on the amount collect for taxes and levies because the Draft Bill speaks to the money that will be payable to the Board.

They do budget for the legal fees and the annual budget for legal fees for the year under review was R2 million. The irregular expenditure pertains to the Board attending training which was provided by the University of Las Vegas, and in this instance they failed to obtain the tax clearance. It was immaterial form an audit perspective, so when the auditor’s identify misstatements in the financial statements they will have a materiality figure and if the mistake is less than the materiality figure then the management of the Board can choose whether to not to adjust the financial statement because they wanted to obtain more information from SARS. The plan is to send this to the condonation committee as soon as possible.

There were technical difficulties for some of the Board members and so the Chairperson moved on to the Department in the meantime.

Mr Savage said that one of the key drivers of training and development underspending is that they were planning on holding their SCM Indaba, which is a supplier and procuring entity interface but because of Covid, they took a decision not to proceed. They have noticed a trend which they have taken subsequent action to correct in terms of the alignment of the training offering; so what they have done subsequent to this financial year is that they have looked at their overall talent management strategy that will align both internal and external training offerings in a more integrated framework. It is not for the year in question, but it is part of their response to seek ongoing enhancements to that programme.

He explained that the rise of agency costs is related to the Provincial Treasury establishment of the walk-in centre as part of the supplier support programme. All irregular expenditure is a concern but given the very low levels it tends to be quite transaction specific. Transfers that are not paid are effectively underspending and surrendered to the revenue fund in the case where they do not make a transfer to a municipality.

Ms Karabelo Mojanaga, the CFO of the Provincial Treasury, said that the institution outsourced the walk-in centre. So what they have done is that they have leased a building in Century City where the walk-in centre is hosted, and they needed to provide security and services for the centre. The total spent on the contract was R45000.

On page 221, concerning the writing off of the debt from SARS, she said that Ms Baartman is 100% correct. It is debt that SARS owes them. It was an old debt and upon consultation with legal services, they suggested that they write off the debt. On 217, the money that was paid over from the Gambling Board to the Provincial Treasury and then paid over to the Provincial Revenue Fund was R686 million.

On the late procurement, she said that there were a number of projects that they anticipated to finalise by the end of the financial year and due to various reasons, they were not able to finalise – for example, the district funding and research procurement plan automation. The irregular expenditure did not increase to R3 million in the 2019/20 financial year because the balance from the 2018/19 was transferred as an opening balance to the 2019/20 financial year, because that irregular expenditure was not condoned. The amount of R1.79 million related to the current financial year was a carry through of the previous irregular expenditure. There was no new irregular expenditure in the 2019/20 financial year. With regards to the transfers to the municipalities on page 241, the spend amount is the amount that they received from the municipality.

Mr Robin Bennett, HOD: Regulatory Compliance, WC Gambling and Racing Board, said that with regards to Ms Baartman’s question, the difference with the levies and taxes is that levies relate to the annual license fees that license holders pays to the Board and the taxes relate to the revenue they generate from the contingency that they offer. What happened in the previous financial year is that the Board made more contingencies available and this resulted in more revenue being generated. The number of license applications generally stays the same so while they have renewals each year, they more or less get about the same number of sites that will open. On page 133, the taxes, especially for the casino, did not increase by much between 2019 and 2020. But what must be concerning is that as of March 15, following the announcement made by the President, the casino started putting in measures in respect of the reduction of trade and stopping the selling of alcohol. That affected the amount of revenue they could have bought in for the year.

Ms Yvonne Skepu, Manager: Legal Services, WC Gambling and Racing Board, responded to the question of the legal fees, stating that they did budget the R2 million as indicated by Ms Siwa. They budget for both the Board’s legal fees and included in that is provision for any adverse ruling by the Court against the Board and the Board possibly being liable for the legal fees of the other side.

Ms Siwa said that on page 133 of the annual report, the levies from horse racing have decreased since last year because on page 145 of the annual report, there is a prior period area which deals with overpayment of the license fees to Provincial Treasury, so in prior years they actually paid over money that was paid to PT so in the current year they corrected that amount. There is no correlation between the taxes that they generate and the license fees which are basically a fixed fee that they need to pay on an annual basis.

Ms Baartman noted that the debt to SARS was written off and asked why it was their opinion that SARS owed them R33000. On 134 of the Board’s annual report, note 23 states that R693 million was collected in total. She gets the difference that the Board gave her about the R690 million and the R693 million and that R3 million is still payable to Provincial Treasury. In note 23, in the Board’s books it said that ‘total collected distributable to’ and then it lists three names: Provincial Government Western cape, South African Responsible Gambling Foundation and Kenilworth Racing and there it said that total collected distributable to provincial government is about R670 million. On page 217 of the Provincial Treasury’s books, under note 2.5: ‘cash received not recognised’, it said that amount paid to revenue fund is just a little over R668 million. So, between this amount in Provincial Treasury’s books and the amount in the Gambling and Racing Board’s books, there is a R2 million difference. She asked that she be shown in the books where this extra R2 million is because it was used for something.

Ms Mojanaga said that there is a difference in recognition. The Board compiled its financial statements based on GRAP, versus the Department which compiled its financial statements on the cash basis. There may be timing differences between when Provincial Treasury recognises, and the Board recognises it in its financial statements.

Ms Ebrahim said they keep records of the overpayments of the payments made by the Gambling Board and they then hand this over to the Provincial Revenue Fund. That is the exact amount that they received from the Gambling Board. With regards to the tax debt from SARS, the difference between their reconciliation and the reconciliation of SARS dated back ten years and they unable to get the specific documentation.

Ms Baartman said that regarding the SARS money that they had to write off, all she can say is that the house always wins. She indicated that she now understands the timing differences in the accrual standards. She asked if the CFO could quickly indicate to her who is on the MCS standard and who is on accrual as all departments will eventually go to accrual. If there is a timing difference in the MCS compared to accrual in the recognition of this amount, could they indicate what the timing difference is?

Ms Siwa indicated that the Gambling Board applies GRAP; so they are using the accrual basis and Provincial Treasury uses the Modified Cash System. The time difference is maybe a month when it comes to casinos. On page 144 of the financial statements, they included a reconciliation of accounts payable as a result of the collection of taxes.

Ms Julinda Gantana, DDG: Governance and Asset Management, Western Cape Provincial Treasury, said that this is a difficult question to answer as a lot of it has to do with their current systems that they are using.

Mr Aziz Hardien, Chief Director:  Financial Governance and Accounting, Western Cape Provincial Treasury, said that the complications have been explained with moving the modified cash standard to an accrual accounting. The MCS was implemented in 2012/13 and on annual basis more notes are added to it to accrual. The intention of National Treasury was, in a period of five years, to move over to accrual from 2020 but they do realise that because they are doing a whole scale move, moving all the departments in the entire country to a new system, the IFMS has to be online. The IFMS has been on the cards since 2007 and they are now sitting in 2021 with no indications that they are moving anywhere quickly with IFMS. “Until the framework for IFMS is in place, we do not foresee any of the departments moving to full accrual because they need the infrastructure to be in place.”

The Chairperson closed the session with the Provincial Treasury and the Gambling and Racing Board. He thanked the Board and the Audit Committee of the WC Gambling and Racing Board, together with the Department and its Audit Committee. He also thanked the Auditor-General for being present in all the Committee’s meetings so far.

Members moved on to discuss their recommendations.

The meeting recording was then cut off.