Public Service Commission:Survey on Vacancy Rate & Department of Public Service & Administration: Annual Report
Public Accounts (SCOPA)
24 October 2007
Meeting Summary
A summary of this committee meeting is not yet available.
Meeting report
STANDING COMMITTEE ON PUBLIC ACCOUNTS (AND JOINT BUDGET COMMITTEE)24 October 2007
PUBLIC SERVICE COMMISSION:SURVEY ON VACANCY RATE & DEPARTMENT OF PUBLIC SERVICE AND ADMINISTRATION: ANNUAL REPORT
Chairperson: Mr T Godi (APC)
Document handed out:
Public Service Commission Presentation: Vacancy Rates in National and Provincial Departments
DPSA Presentation:Vacancy rates in Public Service:a critical analysis
Management improvement plan related to the 2006/07 audit
Relevant Documents:
Annual report of the Department of Public Service Administration 2006 and 2007 [available at www.dpsa.gov.za]
Audio recording of meeting[Part1] [Part2]
SUMMARY
In a joint meeting of the Standing Committee on Public Accounts and the Joint Budget Committee, the Committees heard a submission from the Public Services Commission (PSC) concerning the results of a requested survey into the vacancy rates in provincial and national government. It was clear that there were problems of skills, leadership and information systems within the public service. There was discussion about the discrepancies in the figures given, budgeting and under-expenditure, turn-around times in filling vacancies, and extended discussion about PERSAL and recording systems used by government to monitor employee posts. The Committee concluded that it was closer to understanding the vacancy problem, but was now aware of serious weaknesses in the Government machinery that made this a difficult task to research.
The Committee then interrogated some aspects of the Annual Report of the Department of Public Service and Administration, focusing on the recommendations of the Auditor General. Questions were asked on record keeping, lease commitments that were not originally included in the financial statements, the weaknesses in the various information systems and their interface, the lack of documentation and inadequate systems, inadequate asset monitoring, and risk management. Further questions related to non-payment of invoices within thirty days, which had also been reported on in the previous financial year, instances of under-spending, the vacancy rates of the department and the extensive use of consultants, the budget for the Integrated Financial Management System, the current status and objectives of the public service sector training authority, and the progress of the investigations into fraud. Most of the issues had been addressed already by the Department. The Committee was pleased to note that there had been progress but stressed that there was a need to deal with prompt payment of invoices, capacity building, less use of consultants and the vacancy rates.
MINUTES
The Chairperson welcomed the Joint Budget Committee members sitting with his Committee, and forwarded the apologies of their joint Chairpersons, Ms L Mabe (ANC) and Mr B Mkhaliphi (ANC), who were unable to attend. The Chair did note that there were however, other members of the Joint Budget Committee present.
Public Service Commission (PSC) Review into vacancies in the public service: Briefing
Mr Norman Maharaj, Commissioner, Public Service Commission, tendered the apologies of the Chair of the Commission, Professor Stan Sangweni
Ms Odette Ramsingh, Director General, Public Service Commission, noted that the PSC had undertaken a survey and review into public service vacancies following on a request from the Standing Committee on Public Accounts. It had the mandate to conduct the investigation in terms of Section 196(4)(f)(i) of the Constitution, as well as Sections 9 and 10 of the Public Service Act.
She indicated that a common theme throughout was the significant differences between the two data sources, namely information obtained from the Personnel and Salary Administration System (PERSAL), and the same data requested from Departments. For example, the total number of funded vacancies according to PERSAL was 330 987, while the information from Departments collated to 88 323 vacancies. This presented a discrepancy of 242 664 vacancies or 73.3% between the two data sources. The result was that it was very difficult for PSC to determine the actual vacancy rate.
Ms Ramsingh added that, no matter which vacancy figure was correct, there would be budgetary implications as there was no funding for these supposed positions. The current spending on the compensation of employees suggested that the vacancy rate should by much lower than that suggested by both PERSAL and even the Departments according to the budgets. She highlighted problems in the recruitment process concerning advertisement and job evaluations and noted that both activities needed to be accelerated if they wished to fill the vacancies. Of much interest was a slide indicating the average turn around times for filling posts. 59.8% of Departments had indicated an average turn around time of between 2-3 months, though research conducted by the Department of Public Service and Administration (DPSA) clearly indicated a larger timeframe. The important point again was that this turn around time had to be reduced to positively impact the filling of these positions. Ms Ramsingh noted that it went without saying that the accuracy of PERSAL had to be improved, as this caused many of the difficulties in analysing the nature of the problem. She also outlined and motivated the numerous recommendations at the end of the presentation that would improve the reception and retention of workers. The PSC’s conclusion, based on their findings, was that it was clear that there was a need for the Departments to respond with urgency to the filling of vacant posts.
Discussion
The Chairperson wanted to check whether the six departments that did not respond to the survey were provincial or national Departments.
Ms Ramsingh replied that this comprised of both provincial and national Departments.
The Chairperson asked whether the PSC had been able to find out what the cause of the huge variance between data sources was.
Ms Ramsingh responded that PSC had come to some assumptions about the discrepancies. The first was that there was poor record keeping on the PERSAL System.. Another problem was that PERSAL could not indicate whether vacant posts were funded or unfunded. A third and recurring problem was that abolished posts were still on the PERSAL system.
Mr M Swart (DA) questioned these uncertainties and record keeping problems from a budget point of view. He wanted to know how it was possible to budget if one did not know how many positions to pay for, and how many vacancies there were.
Mr E Trent (DA) added that there would also be a problem when the vacancies needed to be filled, and they were not budgeted for.
These two questions were not responded to directly.
Mr Trent pointed out that it had been indicated there were six Departments who did not respond, though later in the presentation there was reference to “72% of departments that responded to this question.” He wanted to know if that meant that some people did not respond to all the questions, and why this was so.
Ms Ramsingh explained how the departments responded. PSC sent the questionnaires out, and asked for a contact person with whom to check details. Often this would be someone at a low level who did not have a full conception of the whole system. As such their research system did not get used as well as it ought to.
Mr P Gerber (ANC) said that if PSC took the information as granted, the total budget for compensation of employees (including vacant posts) was R174,2 billion and the actual spending R68,8 billion. In his mind this left R105 billion unspent, which was an astronomical amount that would have a huge implication for the economy.
Mr Maharaj assured Mr Gerber that there was no crisis, and that the R174 billion was for the full year’s compensation, and currently they were only part-way through the year.
Ms Ramsingh said that if the PSC took into account the money already accounted for, assumed that the people currently on the payroll would continue to be paid, and calculated the deficit at the end of the year, this would be only a small percent of the budget. This small amount remaining could not even pay for the funded vacant posts, if they were to be filled.
Mr Gerber asked for more information and details concerning the practice by which vacancies were first advertised internally and then externally.
Mr Maharaj agreed that there were internal advertisements for posts, but said that positions above senior management had to be advertised externally.
Mr Gerber told of incidents where someone internal had been earmarked for a position, but the position sat vacant. He suggested that all vacancies got advertised externally as well, to spread the net as widely as possible.
Mr Gerber looked at Annexure B of the presentation that noted the breakdown of total number of funded posts. Those with the biggest discrepancy between the PERSAL and Departmental data were the Departments of Education and Health, and he enquired why this was so.
Mr Maharaj said that when one looked at percentages it was not easy to grasp the size of the issue, but a comparison of numbers was easier to correlate. He speculated that the large vacancies in these areas may have been related to the lack of available skills of teachers, doctors, nurses and assistant staff in these Departments. He also thought that the discrepancies here could also be concerned with the large size and decentralised nature of the Departments.
Ms L Mashiane (ANC) asked how it was possible that, with all the vacancies, there was over-expenditure with regard to the compensation of employees. He wanted to know if this meant that the posts had not been budgeted for, or if personnel in the Department were being paid over the norm.
Mr Maharaj explained that, although Departments were not supposed to transfer and use funds from the non-consumable budget in the personnel budget, Departments would often shift funds and this would prevent over-expenditure on the “personnel budget”. This came down to the poor quality of planning within Departments, and there needed to be correct programmes to deal with service delivery improvements. He also noted that often there was a Human Resources plan independent of a Service Delivery Improvement plan and this affected expenditure. However, he also noted that there could not be overpayment as salaries were regulated. There could be unregulated extras such as bonuses and overtime pay, but this would not account for the kind of over expenditure that was reflected.
Ms Mashiane asked if there was any strategy to curb counter-offers and thereby stop poaching of staff.
Mr Maharaj noted that the PSC were aware of the abuse of counter-offers. Often if there was a shortage of employees, an employee, being aware that he or she had a scarce skill, would apply somewhere else in order to force the employing department to give a counter-offer and higher pay. This practice had something to do with the over-expenditure.
Ms Mashiane noted the high vacancy rate of KwaZulu-Natal and that there was no strategy to deal with it. She wondered how they would fill the posts with no strategy.
Mr Maharaj answered that in the absence of a strategy, they could only assume that KwaZulu-Natal used an ad-hoc approach to fill the positions.
Ms Ramsingh added that, in fairness to KwaZulu-Natal, they did not ask in the survey if there were any other unique strategies over and above a recruitment strategy that they used. In hindsight PSC could have used more in the research once it was done, and asked more questions. It may not have been negligence by KwaZulu-Natal, as they could have other systems in place.
Mr T Mofokeng (ANC) said that he had not heard about the balance of the budget that would be left to spend for the vacant posts. As there were only a few months left, he wondered if there would be a roll over. If so, why were PSC not addressing the issue of unemployment that was brought up by the labour movement.
Mr Maharaj did some calculations and worked out that there would be potential savings of R3,5 billion if the posts were not filled. Should they all be filled, there would not be enough funds to pay for the positions.
Mr Mofokeng noted that there were vacancies in the lowest level positions, and that the main factor given for vacant posts was a lack of skills. He wanted to know why a department would be looking for skills to employ a general worker.
Mr Maharaj speculated that there may be too much bureaucracy involved in employing unskilled positions, and that perhaps the DPSA had more information on that matter.
Mr D Gumede (ANC) wanted clarification on the measurement of the “turn-around time” to fill positions. He wanted to know if the time measured included the notice period of the people who resigned or were asked to leave.
Mr Maharaj replied that the turn-around time did not include the notice period, but only started from the time when the position became vacant. He added that it was a good idea to start the process to fill the position as soon as notice was received, to shorten the turn-around time.
Mr Gumede wanted to know if there was any justification from the DPSA for the average turn-around time being 1 year and 3 months long.
Mr Maharaj said that it could not be justified and that such a period was far too long and impacted service delivery.
Mr Gumede asked how PSC had finally come to a conclusion on the current vacancy rates. He wanted also to know that if there was such a discrepancy between the PERSAL and Departmental replies, what rates were used for auditing purposes, and how then disputes were resolved and the figures reassessed.
Ms Ramsingh said that PSC did not know how accurate the answers were. The formal benchmark was the PERSAL data, which they obtained, but PSC had to note the different figures received from departments. There was a serious need for accurate information to get a good profile.
Mr Trent mentioned that the issue that puzzled him was how the information on PERSAL was sometimes “questionable”. He pointed out that Government administered its payroll through PERSAL, and he could not understand, if everyone was paid with PERSAL, how there could there be different figures.
Mr Maharaj agreed and said that the information on PERSAL was problematic for PSC too. He said that the problem was the irregular updating of each Department’s information on the system.
The Chairperson wanted to know if the PSC was saying that a Department would input information into the system, and then turn around and said that the information was wrong.
Mr Maharaj responded that this was happening. He added that the National Treasury kept the system updated.
A representative from National Treasury said that it was correct to say that PERSAL was kept by the National Treasury and linked to the payroll. However, if there was human error when the information was first inputted, then National Treasury would be extracting the incorrect information out of the system.
Mr Henk Serfontein, Director: Monitoring Government Relations, DPSA, who was an expert on the system, gave a background to it. He informed the Committee that PERSAL was developed in the late 1980’s and was originally conceptualised to manage personnel, but when it was implemented it focussed mainly on payroll. In the process creating a new structure within PERSAL a department would first create a new structure and then transfer the people across from the old structure. The problem arise when extracting information regarding vacancies it is not possible to determine that a particular department is in the process of implementing a new structure and therefore the posts will be counted double. Another factor that contribute to the inaccurate information on vacant post is the tendency within departments to load both the funded and unfunded positions onto PERSAL and there is no accurate way of determine whether funding is actually available for specific positions. The vacancy rate reflected would then include positions for which funding is not available and would therefore not be able to fill. The GIGO garbage in and garbage out principal does apply in the case of vacancies and effect the analysis of the skills shortages within the government.
The Chairperson asked what the future of PERSAL in the Government was.
Mr Kerry Govender, DDG: Management of Compensation, DPSA, said that they were trying to put in a new Integrated Financial Management System (IFMS) and a separate HR module and payroll module.
The Chairperson wanted to know what progress had been made in this regard.
Mr Govender said that the HR system had been tendered already and should be piloted in the second half of 2008. The procurement process to employ people to start writing a payroll programme still had to be started.
Mr Swart noted that the problem with PERSAL was that even the information supplied by the Departments seemed to be incorrect. He was worried that they would implement a new system with PERSAL’s wrong information, and the same problems would continue.
Ms Mashiane wanted to know how long it took to realise that there was a problem with PERSAL.
Prof Richard Levin, Director General, DPSA, replied that the problem on PERSAL had been identified some time ago, and the idea for a new IFMS had also been in the pipeline for a while. He also noted that there was another problem in that the organisational structures captured on PERSAL were wrong, and DPSA were currently developing a database on organisational structures. As the DPSA decentralised public management it had realised that the capacity to manage decentralised managements was lacking. The quality of the personnel tasked with administration was problematic, and so DPSA had created quite a user-friendly programme where they would be able to indicate these trends and problems.
The Chairperson expressed his opinion that it may well have been that the problem was one of HR rather than systems. If there were not the correct people to properly manage and update the system, a new system may not address the problem. He asked the Auditor General (AG) to throw some light on the issue.
Mr Barry Wheeler, Office of the Auditor General (AG), addressed the Committee. He noted that the audit of departments was based on the actual approved number of posts that were recorded at the end of each year. There was therefore a timing problem as by mid-year the information in the system was in flux. He was comfortable that the figures provided in the annual reports were fairly accurate and could be used to work out vacancies. It was problematic to try ascertaining that data within the year, as many Departments aimed to ensure their data was correct only at year end. In regard to the comments on inputs and outputs, Mr Wheeler said that Mr Serfontein had given an honest view as to what happened with the system. The data concerning posts and employment was often held by the Departments in other spreadsheets outside of PERSAL. PERSAL data was also complicated by extra unfounded posts not reflected in the established structure and people appointed as consultants. Mr Wheeler concurred with the finding of the DPSA that the control of PERSAL was left to junior management people, and was perceived as basically a salary payment system. The important aspect of HR management was left out. Mr Wheeler also raised the issue that PERSAL needed a clean up, as some records on it were outdated, and a database needed to be accurate, relevant and reliable. He sounded a note of caution concerning the expectations for the IFMS, and noted that there needed to be an adequate database for it to work.
Mr Trent wanted to clarify if PERSAL was used to pay salaries. If so, he wondered how they could use an incorrect system to pay employees.
Mr Wheeler mentioned that he was correct that PERSAL was the predominant paying system, though there were other databases that were probably more up to date and were used by some sectors.
The Chairperson noted that the discussion had thrown some light onto the PERSAL challenges. He wondered if the PSC was any closer to getting a sense as to the vacancy rates in the public sector. However, it had realised there were serious weaknesses in the Government machinery, and that there were challenges of leadership, skills and capacity.
Annual Report of the Department of Public Service Administration (DPSA)
The Chairperson noted that this session was intended to allow the DPSA to engage with the Committee around their 2006/07 Annual Report.
Ms N Hlangwana (ANC) wanted to know what had been done in response to the Auditor General’s (AG) concerns about record keeping in the DPSA to ensure that records were accurate, complete and valid.
Prof Levin informed the Committee that the Department admitted there was room for improvement and had drafted a management plan that addressed all of the AG’s concerns.
Ms Hlangwana asked about certain lease commitments that the Department did not originally included in the financial statements. She wanted to know if a lease register had been complied and updated, and if cell phones and fax machines were included in the register.
Prof Levin replied that the DPSA had created the register and that the main leases related to the hire of photocopiers and cell phones. It was also recommended that DPSA create an asset register for leases, which they had done, and employee’s cell phones were already included on the LOGIS asset register of DPSA.
Ms Hlangwana mentioned that weaknesses in the DPSA’s Information Systems (PERSAL, Basic Accounting System (BAS), LOGOS etc) were identified, and wanted to know if anything had been done to avoid repetition of these weaknesses in the future.
Prof Levin responded that the Information Systems audit was in March 2007 and at that time the main problem was that DPSA did not have a documented user management and operational procedures for BAS, LOGOS and PERSAL although forms and procedures were in use. It was standard practice on all transversal systems that the systems controller had access to the systems. Another weakness was that previous managers were inactive users on BAS, but their id’s still existed. This inactive user id’s had subsequently been removed.
The Chairperson noted that the AG did not only talk about a lack of documentation, but that the actual systems for user account management were also not adequate. He enquired as to whether anything had been done in that regard.
Ms Deseree Wilsenach, Acting Chief Financial Officer, DPSA, replied that DPSA had made sure that all the AG’s recommendations were followed and built into the user account management procedure.
Ms Hlangwana raised the matter of inadequate asset monitoring, where assets had not been reflected in the asset management register. She asked that the DPSA should indicate what control measures had been put in place to avoid further problems.
Prof Levin explained the background to the two instances referred to and responded that DPSA had taken the correct steps to ensure that such problems would not recur. He noted that they certainly acknowledged this as a problem, and that a new person in charge of monitoring assets had been appointed on assistant manager level to ensure that they got the correct monitoring.
Ms Hlangwana also noted that the AG’s report indicated that for 2006/07 the Department did not have a risk management strategy in place, and the Risk Committee had only met once during the year.
Prof Levin agreed that he thought this was a serious matter and related partly to the issue of decentralisation, requiring that managers needed to properly take on the responsibilities of managing. Given the inadequacy of the risk committee, DPSA had decided to escalate the responsibility to an Executive Committee level, and with the full Executive Committee they had undertaken a risk evaluation. He also noted that the fraud prevention plan formed part of the risk management strategy, but it was too generic and needed to be customised for the DPSA’s use. They were recruiting a deputy director to help co-ordinate that project.
The Chairperson wanted to clarify the Executive Committee taking over the function of the risk committee. He asked for how long this would be so.
Prof Levin explained that when the Director General issued the instruction for the risk committee to meet, it was always made up of lower management members, and he did not believe they could undertake a comprehensive risk management assessment. The decision was therefore taken to escalate it to the Executive Committee level, where all the DDG’s sat,and where proper co-ordination, documentation and so forth could be ensured.
Ms Hlangwana asked if this meant they had shifted the responsibility.
Prof Levin replied that they had, as they initially did not have the quality of people to effect and identify the strategic risks faced by Department as a whole. He believed that risk management was in fact a function for top management to perform.
Mr Wheeler noted that according to Section 38 of the Public Finance Management Act (PFMA) it was the accounting officer and head manager’s responsibility to monitor risk. He believed that having this function at an Executive level meant that cross-organisation risks that existed could be better seen. He would think it was not appropriate for the Executive Committee simply to monitor; they had to do the work.
The Chair requested clarity as to whether the Executive Committee was taking a monitoring role or replacing the committee.
Prof Levin said that the Executive Committee will replace the risk committee, as it will be directly involved in the actual assessment process.
The Chairperson asked what happened to the risk committee.
Prof Levin said that under the new process the Executive Committee would be responsible for updating and monitoring the system. Therefore the risk committee as it existed before would become superfluous.
Mr Trent posed specific financial questions for the Department. He noted that there was no internal audit committee for six months and asked whether that had been corrected, and whether the committee was meeting correctly.
Prof Levin replied in the affirmative.
Mr Trent noted that for the second year running there was a recommendation by the AG to ensure that all invoices were paid within 30 days.
Prof Levin said that this was a very serious matter as the development of Small, Medium and Micro Enterprises (SMME) in the country related to the ability to pay invoices within 30 days. One of the problems was the verification of banking details, but DPSA had now created a process to capture the banking details when the order was logged. He felt that things were improving and the current trend was that less than 3 to 5 invoices per month were being processed late. The DPSA had been challenged to reach 100% compliance and were aiming for it.
The Chairperson asked what the problem with this area was.
Mr Wheeler noted that this was a wider problem than in his Department alone. The first issue was the date stamping of the invoice issues on receipt; these might not be correctly drawn to the attention of the line managers. The 30 days started running from the date of receipt and unfortunately Treasury regulations did not make any allowances for those times when there were complications and disputes about the invoices.
The Chairperson asked if this was 30 working or calendar days.
Mr Wheeler replied that technically it was 30 working days, but most auditing practices used a measure of 30 calendar days.
The Chairperson asked for a better understanding of how the Department process worked to get the payment done in time.
Ms Wilsenach explained in detail the whole process from when the invoice was received at the registry office. It was then sorted and routed to the supply chain section, where it was identified and sent to the manager who requested the service, to certify that the service had been received. There were often delays here as the manager might not be in office. Once signed it went back to the registry, where it would be sorted and finally sent back to supply chain management. From there the account was captured on LOGIS. There would be interface between LOGIS and the BAS system. Payment would be authorised and would reflect four days later in the respective bank accounts. She concluded that it was difficult to get that all done in 30 days, and if there was ever a problem the Safety Net System further delayed the process.
Mr Trent noted that the AG had in the past, and again in this year, allowed the Department to resubmit their financial statements after correction. This time there were expenses to the value of R9m that were incorrectly classified. Mr Trent wanted to know why DPSA could not get their financial statements correct the first time around, especially since it was a relatively small budget.
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Prof Levin agreed that this seemed problematic, but noted that they were dealing with 1 specific problem case and not a generic problem. He explained the origin of the unique case, showing that it was a once-off incident. He added that DPSA had learnt a lesson from this and would ensure they did very careful allocations in the future.
Mr Trent asked about the reason for the under-expenditure of the Department.
Prof Levin outlined the areas where there were incidents of under spending and indicated that all this funding was rolled to the current financial year.
Mr Trent also asked about the vacancy rates of the Department.
Prof Levin replied that DPSA was focussing on filling the vacancies, ensuring that they were filled by March 2008. He added that they were also very systematic as to the advertising of posts.
Mr Trent wanted an explanation about the pages and pages of explanations regarding consultants who were appointed by the Department. He noted that they had budgeted for, and employed 400 people to do work for the Department, sometimes only for one day. Mr Trent asked why they had made such use of consultants in the Department and not filled their own posts.
Prof Levin noted that one of the key aims of decentralised public management was to empower the managers to do what they needed to do. He added that it was no secret that his predecessor placed much more of an emphasis on outsourcing, and that under his leadership, overall there had been a decline in the use of consultants. However, the issues relayed were relevant to their Department as a whole, and they employed people who ended up being project managers who outsourced the work to consultants.
Ms Wilsenach explained the systems that were in place to monitor these consultants. These involved service level agreements and documentation monitoring.
Mr Trent disagreed with the statement, staying that page 85 of the Annual report showed that DPSA had doubled the use of consultants over the last year, despite maintaining that there was a decrease.
Prof Levin said that there was not a decline in the quantum of money spent on consultants, but the use had declined as a percentage of expenditure of goods and services.
Ms Wilsenach noted that they must consider that the budget for goods and services grew R250m, and therefore a comparison as a percentage of goods and services showed a decrease in the use of consultancy. She added that some of the work performed could not be done by their own employees.
Mr Trent asked whether the budget from the previous year to the present year had in fact doubled.
Prof Levin quoted the cumulative budgets and noted that it had more than doubled.
Mr Trent asked a question about the new IFMS and why it was not listed as a main output of the Department or budgeted for, considering the long debate about systems they had had earlier in the meeting.
Prof Levin informed Mr Trent that the actual budget for the IFMS was with National Treasury. The project was owned by the Treasury and developed by the State and Information Technology Agency (SITA). The latest update he had heard was that IFMS will be rolled out by 2012
Mr Gumede asked a question about the Public Sector Educational and Training Authority (SETA). He noted the AG’s concern about the status of the organisation, and that there was currently a three-year arrangement in place for funding of PSETA. He asked about the medium to long term arrangements for this SETA.
Prof Levin agreed that the current situation was untenable. The SETA had a board and a CEO. He noted that they had created the basis to list it as a public entity in June 2006, however the CEO resigned and the Finance Manager passed away. They (DPSA) did not believe it was responsible to release the entity in its present state, but the intention was to have it operating as a stand-alone entity like all the other SETAs in the future.
Mr Gumede enquired about the performance objectives and results of the SETA as the information given did not align with the practice experiences.
Mr Govender agreed that they needed to acknowledge the disjuncture between the key performance areas and the delivery. He noted however that the overlapping responsibilities of the SETA with the DPSA and the Department of Labour created some of the disjuncture. Some of the areas where the SETA could not deliver were also related to inadequacies in the current funding.
Mr Gumede asked about the investigation concerning alleged fraud.
Mr Govender said that the case was before the court at the moment. The moment DPSA had detected the fraud, it had shut the system down, backed it up and called in all the correct parties to deal with it. Currently the alleged perpetrator and three accomplices were in prison, and they hoped to finalise the case soon.
Prof Levin added that a large percentage of the money was recovered when the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) froze the accounts.
Mr H Bekker (IFP) made a comment that usually in Annual Reports there was a foreword or a message from the Minister. This was not present in the DPSA’s report.
The DPSA noted this point.
Mr Bekker also had a question on disposals of tangible assets. There was an item labelled “specialised military assets” though no money was allocated to it. He wanted an explanation.
Prof Levin said that the item was an error and was supposed to have been deleted.
Mr Bekker last question related to the medical scheme highlighted on page 20 and 41of the report, and wished to be furnished with more information concerning the stake holders and the management fee being charged.
Prof Levin indicated that GEMS is a private company created under the Medical Aid legislation and no management fee is paid by government he also noted that DPSA could furnish Mr Berger after the meeting with the report and additional information he required.
The Chairperson said that he was happy to note there had been a number of measures taken by the DPSA to address the issues raised by the AG. However, they still needed to deal with the issue of prompt payment of invoices. Even though it was running to a tight schedule, the Chairperson had confidence that it could be done. He wanted to see capacity being built in the Department, as there was too much money being used for consultants. The vacancy rate also needed attention.
The meeting was adjourned.