DHA Portfolio Audit outcomes; IEC Annual Report 2021/22

Meeting report

Budgetary Review & Recommendations Report: AGSA briefing

The Auditor-General of South Africa (AGSA) said the audit outcome for the Independent Electoral Commission (IEC) was outstanding, as its financial statements had not been submitted for auditing. The 2020/21 audit was signed off only on 20 September 2022.

As a result of computer system crashes experienced by the Government Printing Works (GPW), its financial statements for 2020/21 were received a year late on 31 May 2022, while the financial statements for 2021/22 had not yet been received. The overall audit outcome for the GPW for 2020/21 was a disclaimer. This was attributed to data losses in February 2021 and March 2022, when supporting schedules were lost and audit limitations informed by unreliable system data. The status of information technology (IT) controls continued to require intervention, as this had a huge impact on operations. Internal controls were lacking, such as basic inventory and asset counts not being conducted timeously. The performance of daily controls needed improvement.

Key targets in the medium-term strategic framework were not achieved. Misstatements in the performance report submitted for auditing were corrected, where the information in the report was not consistent with the performance plan. There were no material findings on the usefulness and reliability of the information.

Key targets not achieved were related to the Department of Home Affairs (DHA) modernisation project and the establishment of the Border Management Agency. Areas of concern were:

• E-Visa and Biometric Movement Control System (BMCS) deployed into production without user acceptance sign-off or user acceptance testing.
• E-Visas deployed on workstations not meeting minimum hardware and software requirements. Modernisation projects seem to be having similar control deficiencies as the legacy systems.
• Action plans should be developed, implemented and monitored to address the significant control deficiencies.

A number of Automated Biometric Identification System (ABIS) extensions were approved, but Phase One was not yet complete, and penalties were invoked against EOH (R62 million) and IDEMIA (R3 million) for the delays. The initial project budget was R410 million, but this increased to R475 million due to delays. The delays were caused by technical complexities related to data migration and interfaces, which increased the risk of exceeding the budget. ABIS was critical to resolving some of the risks faced by the DHA and South African security as a whole, as it impacted the DHA's services, the economy and security. With the speed at which information system technology was progressing, management should assess if the technology being implemented in ABIS was still relevant.

The key message for the Portfolio Committee was to monitor and regularly follow up with the executive authority and accounting officer/authority on:

• Oversight on the measures relating to the collection of fines;
• Progress on audit action plans put in place;
• Oversight and intervention at the GPW based on the 2020-21 audit outcomes to remedy the limitation of scope/loss of data;
• Oversight and intervention for the DHA modernisation project and significant related deficiencies; and
• Intervention for collaboration and cooperation by other institutions for successful implementation and operation of the BMA

(See presentation document for details)

Discussion

Ms M Molekwa (ANC) said the matter of the Government Printing Works and the non-submission of its financial statements, had been long outstanding. What were the challenges experienced by the GPW, and what needed to be done for it to be able to comply with the audit process regarding the submission of documents? What plans would need to be put in place to intervene regarding internal controls, enabling better control in its finance department?

What intervention could be put in place to assist the GPW to recover from its current financial situation? What other mechanisms could be implemented to change the audit outcome? What plan could be developed to ensure its audit outcome improves in the next financial year? The issue of irregular expenditure of R622 million had not been dealt with. What had been done to recover this money, and what was the cause of the irregular expenditure?

Ms L Tito (EFF) also raised concern about the GPW's culture of late submission of documents and missing data during the time they were supposed to have undergone an audit. With AGSA's procurement findings that documents were submitted late, who were the people who should have been held accountable? It was stated last year that the AGSA and the Minister were going to monitor the GPW on their financial reports, and that they were going to submit all their documents on time. However, their documents were still submitted late, despite this issue being revealed during the last audit. Why was no one instructed to monitor the GPW's office? Was the Minister the only person to be held responsible?

She asked if the AGSA had been suspicious about the reasons given for the loss of the audit data in two successive years around the time that audit information was due. Given the AGSA's disclaimer audit in 2019/20, was there reason to believe that GPW could have again received a disclaimer audit opinion, even if it had not lost any data at all? Had the AGSA noted any attempts by the GPW to address the ongoing shortfalls in its IT controls? Did the AG have an indication that the culture of consequence management had improved in the DHA from prior audits?

Mr A Roos (DA) began by referring to the Minister speaking about the Department of Home Affairs becoming a security department, but they had seen serious IT challenges repeated year after year. He emphasised that these had been repeat findings that had not been dealt with, and the consequences had become dire. The GPW's crash was recounted, where reconstructing records had began, then another crash was experienced, and all data was lost. It was inconceivable that the DHA would experience a crash that caused reconstruction work costing tens of millions of rands, and did not do a backing up of data immediately thereafter. As a Committee, they had been informed that there were no access controls, logs were easily deleted, and systems were not secure. This had led to an environment where officials could work with outside forces to issue legitimate documents that were illegal, or not secure. What had been done about these specific issues, considering they had been found in previous years? Home Affairs had been called in to account for the consequences for officials who did not implement action plans. As an auditor, what were the specific recommendations of the key things that needed to occur?

What were the most urgent measures the Committee should have considered to plug the security gaps in the Department? It was under attack from people who wanted to issue fraudulent documents, and this was evident in the GPW's lack of performing inventory and asset counts at all, or not timeously. Did the asset and inventory counts include security concerning exam papers?

Confusion had been expressed over the non-collection of permits from carriers, which seemed to be ongoing and unresolved. Recommendations had been mentioned, and he requested that these be shared with the Committee. He referred to an instance of the Minister extending visas via some sort of proclamation, only for persons to arrive at the airport to be told that they did not possess valid travel documents, and were then deported. He said that the carrier should have stopped the individuals on the other side, but they were not being fined, and were not being careful.

Claims against the Department at year end were stated as amounting to 76% of the next year's budget, which he assumed were contingent liabilities. How many millions or billions of rands was the actual figure for this 76%? The Minister had appointed a few lawyers to examine the liabilities. Did the AGSA see improvements in this regard? What were the issues behind the irregular expenditure in the R199 million security tender?

The Chairperson said he fully agreed with the questions raised by the Members on the issues relating to the GPW. Oversight had been conducted many times, where the Minister had established a task team to look at the governance and financial status of the GPW, including the loss of data. He confirmed that the presentation was made available for the attention of the Committee. He questioned if the Minister or AGSA had benefited from the outcome of the report. He advised that the AGSA may need to need to consider including recommendations that had to be put in place.

He listed three issues which needed further attention. These were the financial instability of the institution, the action plans that had to be established to mitigate the entity's weaknesses, and the impact of staff vacancies at the senior level. He also referred to the lack of consequence management concerning procurement issues.

AGSA's response

Mr Fhumulani Rabonda, Deputy Business Executive, AGSA, led his delegation's response to the Member's questions.

Referring to the accountability ecosystem, he elaborated that many had a role to play in the system. Oversight structures had the right to determine who was held accountable. It was not only the Minister or Director-General (DG), but all role players who needed to be called in and asked what they had done and what the findings were, especially concerning weaknesses.

The AGSA explained its reliance on the report into the investigation of the IT crash at the GPW, but said the reasons behind the crash could only be linked to what had been reported before. The details of the investigation would support the audit approach when the next audit was conducted.

The IEC would state the action plans they had put in place to maintain the good outcomes they had maintained in the past. They needed to continue with their rigorous and diligent action plan implementation and should not lose focus. At the GPW, the repeated issues and weaknesses in IT indicated that the action plan was not effective in being implemented appropriately.

Mr Rabonda spoke on the collection of fines, and questioned whether the DHA had implemented effective steps to ensure that there were appropriate and adequate reviews to differentiate statements and to avoid mistakes. The DHA needed to hold officials accountable, especially those responsible for preparing action plans and those not implementing them.

Regarding its reflection on the DHA's service delivery, he said that the observations made were from regional visits, where auditing and observations of branches had been conducted.

He said that the vacant DDG position had since been filled. Historically, unstable leadership at a strategic level could have led to weaknesses. He confirmed that not having a DDG in the IT area had left the Department vulnerable. He added that when the Department was first engaged in connection with the IT weakness findings, it had been adamant that there was no cause for concern. He said that the GPW was of the view that the legislation differentiated on what they called mandatory IT services. State law advisors were consulted, who stated that the IT procurement procedure must be followed, which meant that the State Information Technology Agency (SITA) should have been procured from, especially the procurement of firewalls. Consultation with SITA would have proved to be helpful, as they were formed as the IT agency for the state. However, the Department did not have faith in utilising SITA.

He drew attention to haphazard utilisation without a central point to certify the quality of the IT systems that the GPW was using, which opened up government to a lot of challenges. He explained how firewalls control the traffic around the system of the Department. He cautioned that without the involvement of SITA, there would be no assurance that the Department was protected from threats relating to IT systems.

Mr Musa Hlongwa, Business Executive, AGSA, explained the impact of the repeated system crashes on the availability of data for audit purposes. At the end of May 2022, financial statements were received for the year 2020/21 -- almost a year later. Audit committee members were not happy with this submission, as it had been created in a rush to submit the financial statements, and the system crashes were not allowing the GPW to retrieve key data that would have assisted them in compiling the proper statements. AGSA had reported that the reconstructed data would not support proper documents.

As to what the audit outcome would have been if no system crashes had occurred, it would be tricky to question whether the solving of previous issues had been prioritised, or if there had been capturing of data to create a version of the financial statements. The results for 2020/21 did not show prioritisation of rectifying matters raised in the 2019/20 report. Upon presentation of the audit, the data reflected that the information was not corrected for both years.

On the disclaimer question, AGSA had been unable to make an informed position, but had indicated that the GPW was not supported by government through grants, but received revenue on the basis that the government would be procuring from them. No additional funding had been requested in the current year, and a profit was achieved in the prior year. However, the results mentioned would not be reliable, as they were not audited. The key error was that the GPW was not able to submit reliable figures that would allow assessment of its performance.

AGSA said the GPW should physically have counted the desks, systems, etc on a regular basis. Assets did not refer to security or exam papers, but regular assets used in its service delivery, such as the items it used to sell to different departments. Due to the GPW not doing an asset count by 31 March 2022, they were not able to reliably provide the Committee with accurate figures. AGSA advised the implementation of basic controls and record keeping of the asset count, especially when significant variances needed to be investigated.

Concerning specific recommendations raised, AGSA had met with the Minister on a number of issues, looking into how to retrieve data that had been lost. As the GPW had a government institution (SITA) as its supplier, they had advised it to go through government. They recommended that invoices and data submitted should be used to construct new data to prepare reliable financial statements. Back-ups were being done. AGSA was unsure of the causes of the system crashing, but a sharp look into this would need to be made.

Ms Rendani Matamba, Audit Supervisor, AGSA, said that because the DHA operated in more than 100 missions, a sample was selected to be audited. Due to COVID-19 for the past two years, it had not been possible to physically visit a foreign mission, but South Africa's missions were still able to be audited. No material issues had been found from the audit of foreign missions. Local offices, ports of entry and the Lindela holding facility were visited, where no issues of concern were identified. When local offices were visited, issues identified included long queues and system downtime, which affected service delivery. She also advised that at local offices, some of the buildings from which the DHA operated were of poor quality. An example was the Chatsworth office, where people were rained on inside the building.

Ms Tshamano Ngwenya. Audit Manager, AGSA, responded to the question on claims against the Department, and answered that R2.3 billion was the figure disclosed in the financial statements. The majority of the claims were related to immigration services, and an appeal involving R630 million made at the beginning of the year had been dismissed in favour of the Department, after which the Department had received a summons of R500 million for failing to issue a permit timeously.

Ms Retsebile Seima, Senior Information Technology Audit Manager, AGSA, said the IT weaknesses had been raised since 2018/19. One of the issues was the technical expertise around cyber-security, which was key for both the DHA and GPW, and she had seen a weak ICT security posture at both auditees. Another issue was a legacy matter, where infrastructure and operating systems were outdated. Both the DHA and GPW needed to create a roadmap for resolving the issues raised since 2018/19. Operating systems that were not secure needed to be replaced as soon as possible. She commented that leadership had not been in place with the ability to solve issues raised in prior years, and an action plan would need to be created and implemented to ensure they were resolved. Historically, there had not been consequence management, but auditees were beginning to take action against employees who were not delivering, which, if sustained, would represent proper oversight.

The Chairperson thanked the Members for engaging with the AGSA, and said the issues raised would be focused on through interactions with the Minister and departmental team.

Independent Electoral Commission 2021/22 Annual Report

Mr Sy Mamabolo, CEO, IEC, said the conduct of South Africa’s sixth democratic municipal elections in 2021 had dominated the financial year. The election was delivered despite a compressed 42-day election timetable and the introduction of innovative voter management technology. These challenging conditions achieved a clean audit for the second consecutive year that much more remarkable.

He described the Commission's achievements against its strategic outcome-oriented goals in its four programmes -- administration (75%), electoral operations (0%), outreach (100%) and party funding (100%),

Ms Andile Mbatha, Chief Financial Officer (CFO), IEC, presented the financial performance of the Commission, and highlighted that the AGSA audit had identified no material matters. R3.5 billion in awards had been selected by the AG for testing, including the procurement of voter management devices (VMDs). AGSA had identified no irregular expenditure. However, there had been R1.7 million in fruitless and wasteful expenditure, of which 98% involved fraud that had been referred to the South African Police Service SAPS). The balance was interest due to a late payment.

(See attached document for details)

Discussion

Ms Molekwa congratulated the IEC on their clean audit and expressed the hope that this trend would be sustained in future performance reports received in the next financial year. She encouraged the IEC to begin preparation for the forthcoming national general election, ensuring the mobilisation of as many people as possible. She suggested that they should put more effort and resources into voter education, stressing the importance of voter registration.

Ms Tito asked how the 165 million "please-call-me's" were administered. What methods were used to ensure there was a relationship between the information received and education provided on the please-call-me's? How much was it estimated that the 66 by-elections held during the year under review had cost the IEC? How much of the printing of ballot papers was done by the GPW, and would they be able to print all the ballot papers, or would the IEC need help from elsewhere? What were some logistical and financial implications of the significant increases in the number of political parties and their candidates?

Mr Roos congratulated the IEC on their clean audit and reduction in irregular expenditure. He asked if the challenges surrounding the VMDs had been addressed and resolved, specifically regarding training and technical issues. What was the status of the appointment of the chairperson?

Mr T Mogale (EFF) referred to maintaining the voter's roll, and asked what measures the IEC was putting in place to ensure that the 17 million eligible unregistered adults were able to register? What was the IEC doing to ensure that the voter's roll was increased? Could they provide clarity on the three research initiatives achieved and exceeded? He highlighted the aftermath of the Cambridge Analytica data breach, and drew attention to operations in South Africa. What measures did the IEC have to ensure that SA's electoral system was protected and safeguarded from the big technology companies that were able to take advantage of people through massive psychological propaganda campaigns? In light of big tech companies working with political parties, what was the IEC doing to combat this happening in South Africa? He said that at the by-elections, some voters had complained that they had been removed from the voter's roll. Did the IEC inform people before they removed them from the voter's roll?

The Chairperson expressed his appreciation of the good work done by the IEC over the years and their good audit outcome, and echoed the questions asked by Mr Mogale.

IEC's response

Mr Mamabolo dealt with the issue around the registration of young people and the 17 million people mentioned by Mr Mogale who were not registered. He said the Commission obviously wanted to maximise opportunities for South Africans to enlist on the roll. For this purpose, a number of modalities were employed to register. The mainstay modality for the registration remained registration weekends, as referred to in his as they gave the greatest registration yield of any modality, due to voting stations being within walking distance for people in the community, and it was not limited to those who owned a car due to the close proximity. He said the Commission was contemplating two registration weekends in light of the 2024 elections to register those who had not registered to vote, or had experienced address changes.

Regarding the cost of the by-elections, he said that while registration weekends were the mainstay modality, an online portal had been introduced last year to enable the registration of the segment of South Africa who had access to digital facilities. This modality was underpinned by security measures so that the credibility of voters was not compromised, as discussed in the national party liaison committee, and had resulted in over half a million new registrations, a substantial majority of whom were young people. He said that ahead of the 2024 elections, this modality would need to be given life, and that promotion should take place on social media especially. He advised the use of social media, as young people ordinarily conversed about the country and its politics on this platform.

Those who wanted to register could visit any one of 250 IEC offices in the country, as registration was an ongoing process. Although this modality yielded fewer registrations, it was available nonetheless.

In agreement with Ms Molekwa's statement about young people, he said the IEC had visited institutions of higher learning to ensure young people were on the voter's roll. A similar programme unfolded during April within the formal schooling system, referred to as the "School's Democracy," coinciding with Democracy Week. This provided a registration opportunity, linking with the DHA so that the IEC was present when identity documents (IDs) were being delivered to the schools.

Mr Mamabolo assured the Committee that these modalities would be escalated as preparations for the 2024 elections intensified, and that they had already begun working at campuses to try to bolster the number of young people who were registered.

He responded to the significant increases anticipated relative to the introduction of independent candidates. He said the number of independent candidates participating in the election was something that would only be known at the close of nominations, which would indicate how many met the requirements for participation.

He said that from 1994, a single-column ballot had been used with a list of parties according to the draw for position, and that it followed alphabetically from the party that won the draw. The single-column ballot was able to go to a maximum of 600mm to accommodate all the parties, which had been 48 at the last election. To accommodate parties, a single-column ballot would prove to be too small, resulting in the need for a change in the ballot format for the upcoming elections in 2024. He suggested a double-column ballot, potentially A3 in size, to accommodate a certain number of independents. The Commission would have to decide how the ballot would be configured, as anything beyond 600mm would lead to establishing the number of printing companies capable of this task, as there were few. This would result in a limited time period in which to print, creating a capacity and logistics challenge. The fewer companies with the capacity to print, the longer it would take to print the ballots, pack them per voting station, ensure secure delivery and maintain security until the ballots were used.

He touched on Mr Roos's issue regarding VMDs, and said training opportunities were limited for running effective dry-runs to stress test the devices. He gave an assurance that the issues around infrastructure were being addressed to ensure the accommodation of traffic anticipated on the network, including the reading of maps.

Mr Masego Sheburi, Deputy CEO, IEC, addressed the issues raised by Mr Mogale. He agreed that the Cambridge Analytica data breach underscored the continued need for all role players to seriously guard the democratic gains. He cautioned that if this did not occur, people with resources at their disposal could unleash all sorts of things on society with the purpose of influencing the outcome of elections. He elaborated on the case of Cambridge Analytica in the Pacific Rim, where governance was changed by launching campaigns which were calculated to impact certain demographics differently. These campaigns would encourage participation among certain racial groups and ensure that other demographic profiles did not. This was something that the IEC could not deal with solely, and certain information should be made available so that there was a repository body to check the veracity of information that voters receive. He said a greater role should be played by political parties to ensure their campaigns were informative, but gave voters the tools to decipher campaigns intended to change their voting behaviour.

He cautioned that possible attacks would be aimed at young voters, who were the largest demographic in terms of age groups, but also because they made up the majority of consumers of online content and new information.

Mr Sheburi referred to the capacity of the GPW to print the ballots, confirming that they had considered this in the past, and were not averse to the idea. The CEO had indicated that there was no single printer in the country that had the capacity alone to print the requisite number of ballot papers in the short window period. The two key determinants were the size and permutation of the ballot papers, coupled with the time period needed to print. He pointed out that no fewer than 4 700 different ballots were unique in the local government election, and it took 18 days to ensure that the ballots were printed and packaged for each voting station and to ensure that they were distributed. He confirmed that it was not possible for a single company to do that, including the GPW.

He also addressed the issue relating to the R16 million in expenditure incurred from printing ballot papers involving the 4 700 combinations printed in 2021. A panel of printers had been appointed and managed very tightly, but it had also been shown that all of the printers to whom work was allocated would be unable to print the ballots in time for the elections. Other printers outside of the basket were looked for and awarded with work as a means of risk mitigation, to ensure that special voting papers were in possession on special voting days.

Mr Sheburi responded to the complaint that people had found that they had been removed from segments of the voter's roll. He said that since the judgment in 2016 at the Constitutional Court, there was an obligation on the Chief Electoral Officer to ensure that a voter appeared on the voter's roll with an address, linking the voting district and address that the voter had supplied. There was an obligation on the CEO to change the registration status of a voter if the CEO was satisfied that the details of the voter had changed. An example would be a person appearing on a segment of the voters' roll with an address that was not found within that voting district. In this case, the CEO had to change and amend the voter's roll, which required a procedure to offer those persons a fair administrative process, allowing them to make representation. He admitted that in some cases, it was possible to get through to those voters, and in some cases not, such as when there were fictitious addresses. Voters would find this information out only when they came to a voting station to try to register their details.

Mr Sheburi said that in the context of the voting management devices, and in trying to give effect to the Constitutional Court order, voters could present themselves at any voting station. He cautioned that when their registration was processed, the registration would not default to the station at which the voters had presented themselves, but rather the district linked to an address provided by the voter when they applied for registration.

The last point he touched on was voter registration. He said that the number of people registered as voters compared to the number of people who actually turned up to vote in an election, provided an important indicator of the health of the electoral democracy. Following research conducted over time, it was known that the reason people did not register was not because the process was administratively burdensome, but because increasingly, the majority had lost trust in key political institutions and did not see a value in participating. He said that if the IEC ran voter registration campaigns, and if political parties launched manifestos and running campaigns, it would have the impact of rekindling interest among people who were already growing despondent.

Mr Mawethu Mosery, Electoral Manager, IEC, said he had been dealing with three research projects related to three broad areas of research. The first was a study on the willingness to vote under the conditions and circumstances of the COVID-19 pandemic. The second study was on voter participation, which explored reasons why South African citizens were willing to go out and vote, what motivated them to vote, and what their reasons were for not voting. Some of the assertions that Mr Sheburi presented were related to the outcomes of the study. The third study was around the election day -- the level of satisfaction with the administrative processes at the voting station, and how voters experienced the voting process. If there were views or recommendations for further improvement , they would be able to deal with that too. This was where the IEC ascertained whether the whole voting process was accessible to voters, and whether they could interact with information.

Annually, the IEC had their own research areas of focus. In the current year, party funding has been chosen as an area of focus, which had not been done before. He summarised that the IEC initiated these three projects to help influence election planning and programmes. He agreed that the voter participation study had influenced their campaigns among young voters, informing them about the appropriate platforms for them.

He left the Committee with the one matter to consider -- the voter turnout. The number of voters on voting day differed from the number of voters indicated by the Member, 17 million unregistered voters. During voter registration, 36 million had been targeted as an estimation of eligible voters in South Africa. What became the key voter statistic was how many of the 26 million registered voters came out on election day to vote, and what motivated them to do so. In recent elections, voters had mentioned their understanding of the voting process and the reasons why they were not interested in voting. He spoke on how the campaigns of various political competitors and the impact made on voters. He concluded by confirming that the IEC continued to do their duty of encouraging the participation of voters.

Further discussion

Mr Mogale commented on the issue of ten million eligible voters not being on the voter's roll. He said the IEC should be more aggressive in targeting them, as the voter's roll had been sitting at 26 million since 2016. In moving toward the 2024 election, this would be crucial. As part of its preparations, the IEC needed more aggressive campaigns to increase the voters roll to 30 million as a minimum. He said it would be possible, with proper planning and resources, to ensure that as many people as possible would be part of the electoral process. He suggested that hosting two weekends leading up to the election would not have a great impact.

Ms Janet Love, Deputy Commissioner, IEC, responded to Mr A Roos' question regarding the issue of designation. She said that while they were at full strength, with five commissioners, the issue of designation was not within their hands -- it was a decision to be made by the President. She confirmed that nothing had been heard from the President, and that they did not know anything further.

Regarding Mr Mogale's warning on a Cambridge Analytica-type of data breach, she said that vigilance would be required not only by the political parties, but there had to be internal training as well. There were numerous situations where experienced and committed members of political parties took on board issues received by them through social media and re-tweeted and reposted these interactions. There were a number or ways that this behaviour could be improved by training people, to the extent that the Commission had worked with platforms that were willing to support political parties and candidates. She cautioned that this was something that needed to be followed up.

Dr Nomsa Masuku, Deputy Chief Electoral Officer, IEC, said the voter's roll of 26 million people had been static for a long time. The IEC had hosted two workshops, one internally and one externally, with the purpose of establishing what else the issue was, besides any structural impediments that the IEC had put in place. They had wanted to know the reason for voters not participating and decided that research would need to define this. The research findings had been a cause for concern, as it showed that people made deliberate decisions not to vote. The research showed two populations, where one did not see value in electoral democracy, as there were declines in the belief in democracy and a lack of belief in the political system. She urged that this should be focused on, not just as an electoral commission.

The IEC was committed to doing everything possible to mobilise and reach out to young people to increase voting amongst the youth. She cautioned that this problem could not be solved by merely hosting more registration weekends, but rather by getting a handle on the minds of the youth of South Africa as they deliberately opted out of the electoral process.

She thanked the Committee, and said that more opportunities needed to be created to look at this problem further. The solutions were not simple, and an effort was required from both sides.

Closing remarks

The Chairperson appreciated the good work done by the Commission, and encouraged them to address any weaknesses ahead of the forthcoming elections. He welcomed its efforts to mobilise and contribute to voter education, and the continuous clean governance and financial outcome demonstrated by the AGSA.

Mr Eddie Matonsi, Committee Secretary, said that the application for the Committee to meet during lunch had been made, and that the Electoral Amendment Bill would be finalised, voted on, adopted and reported on.

He advised that in the next week, the Department and the GPW would be meeting on their annual reports, and that they were waiting for approval of their application for a joint oversight of illegal mining when the Minister returns.

The meeting was adjourned.