Question NW2979 to the President of the Republic
20 October 2023 - NW2979
Steenhuisen, Mr JH to ask the President of the Republic
With reference to the lifestyle audits on members of his executive, that he committed to in his 2018 State of the Nation Address, (a) what service provider(s) were appointed to conduct the audits, (b) on what date were they appointed, (c) what are the reasons that they were found to be deficient, (d) on what date were they relieved of their task, (e) what amount were they paid, (f) who is the new service provider, (g) on what date was the new service provider appointed and (h) by what date will the new service provider complete the task?
Reply:
Currently the process of conducting lifestyle audits on members of the executive is not legislated, therefore in order to legitimately obtain the information of individual members in order to conduct the lifestyle audits, members of the executive had to grant consent in writing.
The Office of the Director General considered two options for conducting lifestyle audits on members of the executives. The first option was to use the internal capacity within government with the support of external expertise on certain aspects such as data analysis.
Bodies such as the State Security Agency (SSA) or the Special Investigating Unit (SIU) could be considered to conduct the lifestyle audit. The second option was to fully outsource to an external audit firm or consortium of experts and closely project manage the rollout of the audit.
The Presidency is using both options, the pre-investigation phase which is the first phase of the lifestyle audit will be conducted by an external service provider.
As previously stated in the oral reply for PQ 2883, it is anticipated that this project will be concluded by the end of this financial year.