North West Legislature Education Committee tells Culture and Traditional Affairs Department to prepare Turn-Around Strategy addressing 2015/16 audit outcomes
The North West Provincial Legislature’s Portfolio Committee on Education has resolved that Department of Culture, Arts and Traditional Affairs must prepare a turn-around strategy that will address matters raised on the Audit outcomes for the 2015/16 financial year.
Although the department acquired an Unqualified Audit Opinion with Findings, it was requested to address the material underspending of R7,2 million on basic service delivery matters pertaining to Library and Archives services, and Traditional Affairs.
They include infrastructure projects on construction of traditional offices; E-book services; procurement marketing and promotion of libraries, educational tools and promotional material. The audit report also highlighted the department’s amendment of the Annual Performance Plan in November 2015 without consulting the Office of the Auditor General which impacted on its audit outcomes.
The Chairperson of the Committee, Hon. Boitumelo Moiloa said the department should instil intervention measures to improve spending on critical service delivery matters such as library services and traditional affairs.
“The issuing of library material and promotion of information and communication technology (ICT) is a constitutional mandate of the department to build and promote knowledgeable society. The change on performance targets in the middle of the financial year compromised service delivery in the department as they were deemed unreliable by the Office of the Auditor General.,” said Hon. Moiloa.
She said the department should urgently address the issue of construction of traditional offices as our traditional leaders serve an important role on implementing government’s mandate in the communities.
MEC for the department, Ontlametse Mochware said there is a programme to build capacity in the Monitoring and Evaluation unit that will ensure that performance targets are consistent in the specific financial year.
“We are not doing well on implementing infrastructure projects as our implementing agents, that is, departments and municipalities are slow on construction of libraries and tribal offices. This has a serious impact on the procurement of library material and other related matters. Our audit action plan will ensure that there is monitoring of municipalities who are assigned to administer and maintain libraries in the province,” said MEC Mochware.
Hon. Moiloa said the department must submit a comprehensive report on the status of community libraries in the North West Province.
For more information, contact:
Namhla Luhabe
Cell: 079 527 0628
