The Democratic Alliance (DA) believes it is unacceptable that the Department of Defence failed to appear at this morning's hearing with the Standing Committee on Public Accounts (Scopa).

The fact is that the defence and military veterans department is in a huge mess.

There are some very serious issues that need to be dealt with, including:

the department does not maintain a proper asset register;
the department does not maintain an effective performance management system;
there was more than R118 million of irregular expenditure by the department; and
there were such serious shortcomings in a performance audit of the South African Air Force's Hawk Lead- in Fighter Trainer Aircraft system that the performance audit was terminated.

The asset register situation in the defence department is so bad that the moveable and tangible asset section of the auditor-general's annual report for the 2008/2009 financial year comprises of eleven blank pages.

The Minister of Defence and Military Veterans, Lindiwe Sisulu, could not attend the hearing because she was participating in a state visit to Uganda. However, the letter from the Ministry of Defence, advising that the minister would not be available today, only arrived hours before the scheduled Scopa hearing.

The administrative bungle by the defence ministry and the resultant "no show" reinforces the impression that the department of defence treats parliament with contempt and is not properly accountable to Scopa.

The DA therefore calls on Minister Sisulu to:

get a grip on the situation and ensure that the defence ministry takes the initiative and sets a date as soon as possible with Scopa; and
take action to ensure that officials in the ministry of defence stop playing fast and loose with Parliament.