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The Democratic Alliance (DA) notes with concern the fact that the Department of Correctional Services has received yet another qualified audit from the Auditor-General, in an ignoble tradition of qualified audits for the department stretching back to at least 2001.

There is another fundamental principle at stake here and that is the principle of accountability. Who has been held responsible at the department? Who has been dismissed? The very fact that absolutely no action has been taken after almost a decade of qualified audits speaks volumes about the respect for accountability, or lack thereof, in the department. The DA fears that the lack of decisive political leadership in this department shall continue to doom it to a perfect ten for qualified audits unless a rapid turn-around is implemented soon.

In addition to registering a ninth successive qualified audit, the Department's annual report reveals some disturbing facts, including:

The Department of Correctional Services' qualified audit opinion was based on four main issues:

• Inability to verify the existence of major movable tangible assets (such as vehicles and furniture) with an approximate value of R63 million.
• The Department's major moveable assets did not always reflect the cost or fair value of the assets and consequently its assets were overvalued by approximately R57 million, and is a result of inadequate controls over the review of information captured on the asset register.
• Inability to verify the existence of minor tangible capital assets (such as office furniture and equipment, computers etc.) valued at approximately R31 million.
• R483 million of unauthorised expenditure

In the best of times, one would naturally expect of a government department that the strict monitoring and recording of its assets and expenditure would be one of its principal priorities. However, this need is only made all the greater by a department that has been consistently notorious for its accounting practices over the last several years.

It would seem that the department is little-concerned with the management of public funds and that the department lacks not only managerial rigour but the political will to implement a much-needed turn-around. Clearly, whatever the department has been doing over the past few years has not proved efficacious and so the DA believes that the department would welcome some much needed intervention.

As such, I shall be writing to the Chairperson of the Portfolio Committee on Correctional Services requesting that National Commissioner of Correctional Services and the Chief Financial Officer appear to explain the situation. Furthermore, I shall also request that the Minister of Correctional Services, Nosiviwe Mapisa-Nqakula, offer an explanation of why she has been unable to end the sequence of qualified audits in her department.