National Skills Fund investigation: update by Deputy Minister

Meeting report

Opening remarks
The Chairperson welcomed everyone present. He apologised for moving the meeting from 14:00 to 16:00, as the House was sitting to vote on the Electoral Amendment Bill. In addition, he apologised for the delay in starting the meeting (seven minutes late).

The Minister sent his apologies but indicated that the Deputy Minister would attend in his place.

The Committee had previously indicated that the investigation into the National Skills Fund (NSF) had been commissioned by the Committee, following disclaimed audit outcomes into the NSF.

The Committee had not found the audit outcomes favourable. When audit outcomes are disclaimed regularly, the Committee became suspicious. Nexus, a private forensic company, investigated the entity and its report was released in March 2022. The Committee had been trying unsuccessfully to source this report since then. The Committee was told then that the report was still being processed.

The Committee had then received a letter from Minister Nzimande asking the Committee to invoke Rule 189 of the National Assembly rules. The Minister had requested that the report be treated as confidential.

The Committee did not support the request. It was of the view that the request fell short of Rule 189 in that, amongst other things, the report had been handed over to the department in March 2022 without action being taken. In addition, the Committee felt that a report into the mismanagement of public funds could not be held in confidence.

The Committee sought legal advice from Parliament Legal Services on the application of Rule 198, which confirmed the Committee’s position.

This summary was to brief the SIU and the Hawks on the Committee’s progress.

The Chairperson introduced the members that were present in the committee room and online. He acknowledged that some Committee members would be travelling over the weekend to the Southern Africa Development Community Organisation of Public Accounts Committees (SADCOPAC) conference.

Remarks by Deputy Minister

Mr Buti Manamela, Deputy Minister, thanked the Committee for the opportunity to brief the Committee on the investigation into the National Skills Fund, emanating from the findings and recommendations from the AGSA.

The report had been long overdue. The Department was ultimately here to present the report.

On 13 September 2022, the Minister briefed the Committee on the completion of the forensic investigation, which he commissioned and presented a summary of the investigative findings. The Committee had expressed its dissatisfaction with this approach and preferred a presentation of the “raw report”, as it had indicated despite the concerns about the confidentiality and legal rights of the NSF officials who had been implicated in the report.

In spite of the Minister’s appeal, the Department was here. The Committee had given DHET 10 days to release the report. The report had been submitted to the Committee on 23 September 2022.

DHET was appearing before the Committee at a time when there were some concerns that the Department had, which were in the public domain, and could have been caused by the interaction that DHET had had, between the Minister, the Department, and SCOPA.

Given the interpretation of some of the events that had taken place, the Department had wanted to place on the record that there was no intention either on the part of the Ministry or the Department to keep the report confidential for malicious intentions or to “sweep under the carpet” any of the individuals who had been implicated in the report. There had not been anything untoward – the Department did not intend to shield those individuals from being held accountable or from consequences that they needed to face, based on the findings and recommendations of the Forensic Report.

As soon as the Auditor-General brought up the National Skills Fund issues to the Department’s attention, DHET wasted no time in dealing with it. By the time DHET had an interaction with SCOPA last year, it had already indicated that there was a process to appoint a forensic company, Nexus, to conduct a forensic investigation into the issues that had been raised by the AG.

The investigation process had taken 18 months to complete and it had been presented to the Minister on 17 March 2022. The Minister subsequently presented the report to the Director-General for internal consequence management and external pursuance of criminal investigations against individuals who had been implicated in the report.

Deputy Minister Manamela indicated that he needed to start by setting that record straight, as there had been confusion due to the communication between the Ministry, the Department, and SCOPA.

The DG would take the Committee through the summary of the report and key actions that had been taken to date.

Based on the legal advice that the Ministry and the Department had received, certain actions had been taken to ensure the implementation of the report. To date, five individuals had been placed on precautionary suspension. The Hawks had been approached and all required documentation had been handed over by the NSF to the Hawks to facilitate criminal investigations.

Criminal charges had been laid by the Department with SAPS. The NSF would blacklist companies that had overcharged for equipment that was to be purchased. The process of due presentation would precede the blacklisting action, which would be completed by the end of 2022. The NSF would approach companies that did not deliver equipment they had been paid for and would demand reimbursement.

The DHET’s legal unit was in the process of procuring an external panel of legal experts to oversee the termination of charges process and appropriate sanctions against all officials of the NSF who had been materially implicated in the Forensic Report investigation.

On the systems side, the NSF had been showing signs of improvement. The 2021/22 FY AGSA audit report showed a move away from two consecutive disclaimers to a qualified report. He recalled that part of the Committee’s concern had been on what else DHET was doing to avoid this situation in the future.

The NSF was in the process of developing a new audit action plan, which would address the current and other lingering findings by the AG in the NSF Report.

The Ministerial Task Team, appointed by the Minister to review the business model of the NSF in July 2021, completed its task and presented its recommendations to the Minister on 30 June 2022. The NSF system remodelling recommendations were scheduled to be contextualised and implemented from 1 July 2022 to 30 June 2023.

He and the Minister were taking this matter very seriously, due to the fact that this process had involved a total amount of R2.5 billion and that public funds had been misappropriated. They had no intention of shielding those who needed to face the consequences of their actions, whether those actions were criminal or a result of their inability to oversee and manage these resources.

Deputy Minister Manamela also wished to assure the Committee and the public that the Department had nothing to hide from the concerns raised by the AG. DHET supported the AG’s work and was working with the AG to help the team at the NSF understand how important the AG’s work was.

The Director-General would present in detail what he had highlighted and to respond to the Committee’s questions.

Introductions of the DHET, NSF, SIU, and AG staff present were made.

National Skills Fund investigations: progress report

Dr Nkosinathi Sishi, Director-Genera, DHET, presented on the NSF investigation findings from the AG’s report.

- Purpose
- Legislative considerations
- Selection criteria of investigated projects
- Terms of reference
- Projects selected
- Legislative framework
- Recommendations
- Denouement
- Progress update and way forward
- Consequence management
- Graphic roadmap towards full implementation of the recommendations of DSCI and Forensic Report

Mr B Hadebe (ANC) apologised for interjecting the DG while he was going through specific project recommendations and asked if the DG could focus on the Department’s way forward and what progress had been made, as the Committee had received the Forensic Report.

The DG continued with his presentation, which covered the acting Chairperson’s points.

Based on the AGSA prior audit findings/reports flagging internal weaknesses of the NSF business system, the Accounting Authority, Accounting Officer, and the Chief Executive, NSF management have since worked closely with the AGSA in which an Audit Steering Committee was established.

The Audit Steering Committee held 17 meetings to improve controls based largely on the AG Report, its findings, and recommendations. All Requests for Information (RFIs) and Communication of Audit Findings (COAFs) were tabled, as well as all Audit compliance-related matters.

Five (5) consultative meetings by the AGSA were held with the Director General as the accounting authority of the NSF. These engagements concentrated on Audit compliance matters. In this regard, all NSF personnel were convened to a 2 days Audit Debrief and Ethical Conduct Workshop on 14-15 September 2022.

Based on the AGSA findings superimposed with the forensic report findings and recommendations, the Department of Higher Education and Training has reported to the Directorate for Priority Crimes Investigation (HAWKS) the findings of the forensic investigation.

All principles recognised by natural justice are adhered to. In this regard the officials implicated will have an opportunity to respond to their charges to an Independent Panel of Experts.

The Directorate for Priority Crime Investigations will conduct further investigations as recommended in the forensic report.


See attached presentation for further details.

The Chairperson apologised for stepping out, he had a family emergency to deal with. He acknowledged that it was disrespectful to the meeting and apologised again.

Directorate for the Priority Crime Investigation (DPCI/Hawks) response

Lieutenant-General Godfrey Lebeya, National Head, DPCI, said that the documentation had been presented to the Hawks this month. A case docket had been opened at Pretoria Central, for which there was a case number. As the investigation progressed, this docket would be split so that each project was incorporated into its own case docket. At this initial stage, the matters were being looked at in one docket. There were already 10 steps that had been taken after receipt of the documentation. It was a systematic search for the truth, so he would be unable to reveal anything now.

The recommendations that had been made had been noted and would be dealt with. The Hawks worked closely with other entities, such as the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) - there was already a plan that was unfolding as to how to approach these types of inquiries.

On the letter that suggested that the government fraud unit would be dealing with this, the Hawks already had an investigation team that was dealing with this under serious economic offences. The matter had already been allocated to a specific unit.

Special Investigating Unit (SIU) response

Adv Andy Mothibi, Head, SIU, said that there was a “whole lot of work” that the investigators had covered, as it appeared in the report. It could be seen that consideration had been made on the recommendations, particularly from the ‘general conclusions’ and ‘general recommendations’ as seen in the DG’s slides.

However, the SIU had noticed that there was an opportunity where it could probably engage further with DHET. The SIU had realised that the report as it was, did not really cover civil litigations. Recommendations were made based on the findings to the DPCI, which was “proper and appropriate”. There were recommendations for disciplinary processes, which were proper and appropriate. The missing recommendations on civil litigations were an area in which the SIU would like to engage with and assist the Department.

The DG had made an accurate observation at the beginning of his presentation on the constitutional injunction on Section 217 of the Constitution and related provisions of the PFMA.

Reading through the report, Adv Mothibi said that there was an assumption that the procurement process may have been followed appropriately. His assumption was based on the following observations: the investigators, in many instances, were making observations around non-compliance with the Memoranda of Understandings (MOUs) that they had entered into with various service providers.

This had been seen in various projects. Non-compliance with MoUs may have given rise to breaches of contracts. The SIU had not observed whether the procurement process was followed or not followed. The SIU regularly dealt with these matters, so could say this. Based on that, the SIU had expected to see that if there had been such a finding, that the procurement process had not been followed, what would then follow, legally, would be to ask what would happen to the contracts, they should be set aside. What followed was the recovery process, which was on the civil litigation side. Their colleagues in the Hawks would deal appropriately with the criminal side.

In one of the projects, Ikhonolakho, there was an indication that there had been an unsolicited proposal presented. There was nothing wrong with unsolicited proposals, but there were processes that needed to be followed. The SIU had not seen that there was a pronouncement on whether those processes were appropriately followed.

Looking at the report generally, particularly on sections dealing with limitations, that because of those limitations, the investigators did not have the legal powers to do so. This was referring to the subpoena of bank statements. In many instances, the investigators had made pronouncements that they did not have all the bank statements. There was a statement in the report: “due to unavailability of bank statements, we were unable to verify the throwdowns”. Where there was reasonable suspicion of corruption, matters had been referred to the DPCI, which was fine.

There was another project, where again, the investigators indicated that they could not verify payments from  NSF to Dithipe Trading Enterprise. The bank statements had not been provided to the investigators. In that case, the investigators recommended blacklisting.

While the area of corruption, fraud, and theft was the criminal law part where criminal investigations would be conducted effectively, there was an area which the SIU believed that the Department could immensely benefit from. The SIU could ensure that what the Department lost was recovered. There were many other areas in which the Department received value for money that could be looked into. This had not come out in the report. It was a significant area to determine what the Department actually received.

On maladministration and malpractice, recommendations, which were called systemic recommendations to improve system processes and administration, had not been clear.

There was an aspect of civil litigation that the SIU believed could be plugged into the final slide’s graphic roadmap to ensure that the Department recovered what was due.

Another area was accountability levels. There were recommendations for disciplinary processes to be considered. Having read through the report, Adv Mothibi said that the SIU could not determine the accountability levels. This was critical for consequence management.

Regulatory and administrative actions that needed to be done: blacklisting, which the Department mentioned, but also other regulatory infractions that could have been implemented, such as infractions on income tax legislation. The SIU would look at all of these factors and determine what it was that the state had lost and needed to be recovered.

The SIU could engage with DHET further and on the SIU’s side, pursue a proclamation that would enable the SIU to assist the Department to plug the significant gap that had been left out by the investigators.

Discussion

Mr S Somyo (ANC) said that the Committee should appreciate this as a first step forward. The determination by the DHET would have been invoked by the AG’s report; it was a solid base for what was happening now.

30 companies had been sampled by the AG, which had helped the investigators arrive at their findings, which were being taken further with these investigations. The sampling of these investigations used only 10 companies, which arrived at a similar but more in-depth analysis of the problem, but this was still only a sample.

The Department needed to follow the process, and then find and deal with a problem. It could not create limitations, by only dealing with 10 companies, which was a sample from the sample of 30. It needed to deal with all, not just a limited sample, to deal with the bigger picture.

The Department had the authority to deal with all of their projects and investigate whether there had been ill-intents, did this report not give the indication that there was a problem and that it needed to be dealt with? Not just the 10, but all the projects? Was this report not driving the Department toward solving this? If not, why not?

There was justification for the AGSA investigators to have a limitation to their findings, as they did not have access to all the bank statements, but the Department had the authority to deal with it further.

The Department had to spend time and resources to deal with this. It might be the case that those being investigated were continuing to work with the NSF, this was a danger as it could exacerbate the identified challenges. Was there any model that the Department had been following to get to the root of the problem?

Administratively, the Department had been “off the ball”. Why was the Department continuing to rely on the administrative systems that had caused this problematic expense?
           
On governance, the Department had been improving, but how was it modelling its administrative processes to deal with the problems detailed in the investigation? It was a matter of urgency to look into this.

There was a risk of muddying the waters in attempting to right the wrongs, perhaps unintentionally. In a bigger scale, what was the Ministry doing, in terms of arresting individuals?

There were acting individuals in senior positions, an acting CFO. He did not know whether the acting CFO was from within the NSF or DHET or external. There was an acting CEO. There was a huge expenditure and those that were responsible for this expenditure were acting individuals, which was a huge risk, in terms of financial accountability. He needed to emphasise this so that the Department could look into a better way of sustaining the good practice in the institution.

He appreciated that the Department had involved the Hawks, it should also look into involving the SIU. The Chairperson should look into a process to ensure that the Department engaged with the SIU.

Ms V Mente (EFF) asked the Deputy Minister when it was appointing a forensic company to investigate, even against the advice of Parliament, through SCOPA, that this route that would delay the process and be problematic in the sense that there were legislative limitations with private companies. However, within the SIU, it became easier. This included the scope. Before DHET had agreed on the terms of reference with the investigators, it had not been aware of the scope. Now that the scope had been reduced to only 10 companies, did this not make the Department uncomfortable about the rationale for this decision because we are speaking about a full financial year, and the year before where the AGSA had been unable to continue with its audit because none of the companies or service providers that had been doing business with the NSF were able to work with the AG?

There had been no comfort that even 50% of the expenditure could be proved. Was there no discomfort that forensic investigators would not assist the Department?

It worsened when the scope was reduced to 10. There is no way to detect within the system who to continue doing business with and who to stop doing business with. There is a predicament, the Department has to continue delivering services but who was the Department working with at the moment? This was the problem. This needed to be avoided with other departments that will say forensic investigations are better in this case than taking all of this and giving it to the institutions that have the capacity and no limitations whatsoever. Reading the report, the limitations on all 10 service providers were at a point where the company could not be forced to provide anything to the investigators, unlike the SIU which could force its way into anything.

What was the rationale behind all of this?

To the DG, Ms Mente asked about the service providers, especially the 10 which had been found to be in the position they were in, the forensic investigators had said that these were the people whom they suspected there had been a flow of money, and maladministration and corruption.

Were these from the 10 that were listed on the database? Were these 10 still receiving money from the state and what were they doing?

Was the Department now in a position, so that when the AG came, to prove with hard evidence, either paper or electronic copies, that the flow of funding was legitimate?

Mr Hadebe was comforted by the Minister and Deputy Minister taking this matter seriously.

On 8 February 2022, when the Committee had raised the issue of the SIU forming part of the forensic investigation, the Minister had indicated that DHET had consulted the SIU and there had been general acceptance of using the investigator. There was a proviso that once the investigation had been concluded, that the report would be furnished to the SIU to act upon. That was emphasised again in SCOPA’s previous meeting on the NSF, that the SIU had to come in.

He reiterated the stance that had been taken on 8 February and in the previous meeting, that the SIU had to come on board where there were limitations on mandate and power and the SIU had to act on such. Had the SIU received the report from the Minister as promised on 8 February 2022?

To the DM, Mr Hadebe recalled that five officials were on precautionary suspension. The progress and way forward slides only indicated that there were internal disciplinary processes that were underway. It did not give the Committee a sense of how many officials had been served with letters of the allegations against them, and whether or not charge sheets had been drafted and served.

The last time SCOPA had met to discuss the NSF, the issue of the report being confidential had been on the basis that not all the officials had been afforded an opportunity to respond to the allegations. One of the recommendations for the way forward was proposing and receiving. The Committee should receive a detailed (but not including the names of those individuals) sense of how broad was the corruption in the NSF and how many officials were involved, and whether or not all involved had been served with a letter of allegation.

On the Ministerial Task Team report that had been submitted to the Department, could this be shared with the Committee?

On the SIU and civil litigation, Mr Hadebe emphasised the importance of involving the SIU to ensure there were no loopholes and everyone who had been alleged to commit acts of misappropriation of taxpayers’ money was brought to justice.

The Department had indicated that certain documentation had been required by the Hawks, which it was currently compiling. When would this be submitted? When had this request been made?

The process had been dragging, DHET needed to expedite this process to see justice being served.

AGSA response

Ms Kgabo Komape, Business Executive, AGSA, said that Mr Somyo and Ms Mente had covered “an audit element” in their questions, but emphasised that the AG had audited a sample with a minimum of 30. If the Committee looked at the outcome of the investigation, it said that for all the projects that had been selected, there had been a problem. From the audit element, the AG would then indicate that the problem was the population. The full amount of the skills expenditure needed to be looked at.

There was an opportunity for the entity and DHET to ask how they take the findings that suggested that 100% of the amount had a problem. How do they respond in a manner that closed everything?

That was where the audit would go. In the next year, and even in the current year, there would still be a limitation on that particular skills expenditure. It meant that when the AG came to support the entity and did the audit, and make sure that the AG could then express an opinion on the skills expenditure, the first question that would typically be asked is how they envisage the entire population. In other words, how comfortable were they that the 10 were an anomaly, or that the remaining companies were valid, accurate, and complete?

This meant that when the AGSA submitted the documents to the Hawks or SIU, that particular case would be submitted. It was difficult to predict a criminal case, so a department or entity needed to evaluate its entire pool and then conclude with a way forward that also spoke to the consequence management element of the entire population. This was from the audit perspective, so that even when AGSA approached this audit post the investigation, the first question would be how comfortable were they that those 10 were the only ones. If it was not the only one, how did it deal with the rest of the population?

The Chairperson observed that the more he hears the more complex and complicated this becomes
It is not sounding like gibberish but it is sounding like a very substantive reality.

The Chairperson invited the DG to respond and indicated that the is developing a road map.

DHET response

Dr Sishi said that in the minds of all those listening to this conversation, they would feel more confident that were all united against non-compliance, crime and corruption. This was a message that had been received and had been echoed by all those who had spoken today.

He thanked members for their questions. All of the issues raised needed to be dealt with by the Department.

When 10 projects, or any number, were selected, it was clear that the intention was to generalise on the rest of the population. It was not to just focus on the 10 projects.

He responded to Mr Hadebe’s question on the scope going forward, it was aligned with what the AG was saying. It further explained, and confirmed to him, that the Department’s approach was correct. Firstly, DHET had made it clear that when the AG did the audit, it provided a management letter specifying the areas of the audit, but it was not everything. The internal audit reports covered the entire spectrum of the work that needed to be done. It was made clear in the panel that the Department’s interest was all audit findings. That was why he was pleased when the AG had worked with the Department in the establishment of the Audit Steering Committee that looked at all requests for information, including those that had not been fully complied with. This was all within the investigation’s scope.

He had been worried when the five suspended had been mentioned, because he thought that it would distort the picture. Everyone would be under scrutiny in the investigation.

Earlier, he had mentioned that he did not understand how a project could be approved without due diligence, particularly when it came to establishing market readiness – for such a project with so many allocated resources. He knew that it was difficult for any accounting officer to make that call, but it was important to develop the capacity to do so within the system.

He was pleased that all the concerns he had raised would appear in the Ministerial Task Team report, which he would be happy to share with SCOPA. It confirmed that there were systems in the general conclusions of Nexus that were weak and needed to be looked into, whether that was monitoring systems, or the non-compliance with the MoAs. These were not general problems, they were specific and were under the Department’s purview.

To Mr Hadebe, Dr Sishi also said that expediting the project was DHET’s priority.

He was encouraged that when the Minister had been asked to comment on the forensic investigation versus the SIU, he had indeed indicated that, at a certain point, it would be necessary to work with the SIU. That time is clearly upon them. This was done with determination and there are no contradictions.

Quicker turnarounds mentioned by Mr Hadebe had been noted and would be taken into account for future reports that DHET would be providing. Establishing the systems had been a struggle for the Department, because they had been working with the very same people who had been implicated in the same report. When the Department looked for a team to further investigate problems, it was the same people that were being investigated. This had not been specified in previous reports. This was why DHET had relied on working with the state agencies. And he was quite happy when they had met with the Hawks, and they had embraced the spirit of the recommendations. All the reports that had been requested by the Hawks had been submitted.

On acting capacity within the NSF concerns raised by Mr Somyo, Dr Sishi said that the Department had noted his point and hoped that their progress in appointing new people would be reflected in the next report. The appointment of the CFO had been finalised, and would be announced soon. Other key positions were also being appointed. This was difficult as some of the applicants were people being investigated on the same issues that are being raised.

Risk management was a huge challenge and would be prioritised by DHET. A risk management strategy had been developed but it needed to be looked into, taking into account Adv Mothibi’s comments on outstanding consequence management strategies, in particular civil litigation.

“We are aligned in the thinking and I am sure having worked with this team, it’s not going to be difficult to arrive at a satisfactory conclusion on those matters”.

On Ms Mente’s point on the rest of the projects, outside of the mentioned 10, the Department’s focus was not just on the sample 10 but the entire system, as the AG had mentioned. This was noted and accepted.

As a Department, it might have initially appeared that their approach had been slow and reluctant, but he hoped that it would become clear that DHET was determined to comply fully with the public’s expectations.

Deputy Minister response

Deputy Minister Manamela said that his first point would deal with the members’ and Lieutenant-General Lebeya’s observations, which was for the Department to engage with the SIU.

The members and the AG had correctly observed that the Department’s sample of a sample, which was indicative of what could potentially be a larger problem. The discussions between everyone involved should deal with “getting to the bottom of the problem” and ensure that this did not recur. He agreed fully with this.

The discussion between the Department and the SIU should happen and the SIU already had the report.

Secondly, the Department had been involved with the AG to ensure that moving forward, the work of the NSF continued, as Ms Mente had commented on, and that those implicated might continue working with the NSF. The point was that the Department had been working with the AG to ensure it met the audit requirements on the NSF. They were beginning to see some improvement.

Thirdly, the Ministerial Task Team’s review of the NSF had been finalised and the implementation of the recommendations made were being rolled out. Consultations were underway. Beyond organisational challenges, which had led to the findings, part of the problem had to do with the governance structure of the NSF. This was being attended to in haste.

On the discussion around the rationale of the investigative process, the discussion throughout, at least on the Department’s side, had been to see whether the process could be expeditious. DHET had been open about this. The Chairperson had said that this was the Ministry’s version of events, but by the time DHET had engaged with SCOPA, the process had already been initiated to appoint a forensic investigation service. The conclusion at the time had been that this process needed to continue and DHET would subject itself to the process outcomes.

The discussion between the SIU and DHET on the outcomes of the forensic investigation needed to happen so that the root of the problem is found and not repeated. There had been improvements, as over the past year, DHET had been investing time and resources into the NSF to improve governance and how projects were being brought out. With time, there would be positive outcomes in the audit process of the NSF.

The Acting CEO had been in one of the agencies in the same branch but was not within the NSF. DHET’s intention, as part of the stabilisation process, was to ensure that it had full-time competence at the leadership level of the NSF.

Lastly [jokingly], the Department was willing to work with everyone involved to bring this matter to finality, that consequences were met, and that those who might have committed fraud and other crimes were “brought to book”.

Hawks Response

The Chairperson said all the General titles were confusing and that he needed to learn them.

Lieutenant-General Lebeya said that it was easy as all Generals were referred to as such, and the only difference was in the written titles.

The Chairperson joked that this was “generally” accepted.

Lieutenant-General Lebeya confirmed that on Monday, 17 October 2022, when there had been an engagement to request certain documents, and on Tuesday, when certain documents had been provided, there were still other documents to be provided. He was hopeful that the rest of the documents would be forthcoming.

SIU Response

Adv Mothibi said that as the SIU engaged with the Department, it would ensure that the scope was appropriately determined. There was a legal requirement to indicate what the scope was, and from which year to which year. The SIU would also ensure, as the AG and Ms Mente had commented, that the whole population would be covered, so nothing would be left out.

Closing remarks

The Chairperson said that the three areas seemed to be linked – it was a three-pronged approach. There was the Departmental process, which included disciplinary hearings which were ongoing. Then, there were the Hawks-led criminal investigations which were underway, and the SIU-led civil litigation, which needed to come to fruition.

It had been confirmed by the Deputy Minister and DG that work was being done and information was being sourced. This needed to continue.

The Committee requested that there be a meeting between the Department and the SIU within the next 14 days to fill in the third leg of this process. Then, the Committee would ask for the usual quarterly reports from the various processes for progress updates. Phase 1 of the matter would be rounded off, to say that audit outcomes had been received, they had been disclaimed, that the Committee had a process and the Department had its process, which culminated in the forensic investigation, the Committee had received the report and been satisfied that work was being done, provided that the SIU-DHET meeting took place. This was because the only work that had been done was based on a sample. This was just an indicator that there was a problem.

The SIU’s proclamation needed to be drafted in earnest to bring this matter to a logical, legal conclusion.

The South African public was fed up with corruption. Anytime there was something that suggested this, it agitated the public. His advice is that decisions needed to be viewed from the “lens of perception”. The request to keep the report confidential did not sit well with the Committee, as a committee for public accounts. The Committee needed to ensure that the public derived some sort of hope – the Committee would bring anything to the spotlight.

The meeting was adjourned.