Question NW440 to the Minister of Public Works and Infrastructure

Reply:

The Minister of Public Works and Infrastructure:

The following measures have been put in place to ensure the following:

(a) In terms of the Section 12(2) of the Expanded Public Works Programme (EPWP) Ministerial Determination, every employer must keep all the records of each participant for at least three years after the completion of the EPWP project. In the current reporting procedures for theEPWP, public bodies are expected to scana certified Identity Document (ID) copy for every participant reported. This is to ensure that each ID numbers of the participants captured in the system are cross-referenced with the Home Affairs Database to safeguard that only valid ID numbers are reported. However, to address the audit findings issued by Audit General of South Africa which indicates that public bodies do not keep all records as per the requirements of the Ministerial Determination, the Department of Public Works and Infrastructure (DPWI) is upgrading the current EPWP reporting system to ensure all requisite documents are uploaded by public bodies when reporting on work opportunities created. In the interim, through public body visits which are conducted by the DPWI to verify information reported into the EPWP Reporting System, verification of records kept by public bodies as per the Ministerial Determination is done.In instances where there are gapsidentified on records kept by public bodies, these cases are recorded in an intervention registermaintained by the DPWI. Where there are persistent non-compliance which could not be resolved from interventions provided, such cases areescalatedto the Accounting Officers of public bodies for their attention and resolution.

(b)Through public body visits and site visits carried out by the Department, regular audits are done on participants lists on EPWP projects.In addition, the Department of Public Works and Infrastructure also undertakes audits through its internal audit unit.

(c)The EPWP Reporting System is linked to the National Population Register of the Department of Home Affairs with the ability to do real-time validations of participants ID Numbers. Furthermore, actual site visits are conducted by the Department of Public Works and Infrastructure to verify project and participants information.

(d) In the EPWP Reporting System, there are validity checks that exist which compare the budget captured against expenditure on projects. Should there be any discrepancies such as when the expenditure on a project exceeds the budget, the discrepancy is flagged and shared with the public body for verification.

(e) In order to address non-compliance, various steps are taken by the Department. For projects funded through the Incentive Grant, withholding of the Incentive Grant is effected in the cases of non-compliance with the Division of Revenue Act (DoRA) conditions. Whilst for any other non-compliance picked during site visits and public body visits, Accounting Officers of public bodies are informed of such non-compliance and intervention is sought to remedy the matter.Where written escalation proves to be in-effective, face-to-face engagements are conducted with the Accounting Officers of non-compliant public bodies. If solutions cannot be reached at an administrative level, such cases are escalated to political principals for their intervention.