The provincial legislature's standing committee on public accounts (Scopa) was scrutinising the auditor general's (AG) findings on the department in the presence of provincial AG Singa Ngqwala on Tuesday.
The department, one of the worst performing departments in the province, received a qualified audit opinion during the 2010/11 financial year, a regress from unqualified findings in the previous two financial years.
The department has a record 1847 vacancies, which translates into 36% of available posts and includes unfilled critical posts.
MPL Xola Pakati asked accounting officer, Glen Thomas, how the department hoped to improve the situation if it had too many executive personnel in an acting capacity.
Thomas said: "Yes it is true that there are quite a number of people who are acting. And as you may know, towards the end of the calendar year last year, we went out on a recruitment [drive] and selection process and had advertise more than 300 posts. All these posts have been advertised, we are also conducting interviews and we are in process of filling them."
MPL Mxolisi Dimaza asked: "We are asking you about senior managers on acting capacity here. There are 10 or even more here. You cannot have 300 posts at senior level. Be specific to what we are asking.
"If these posts are at lower level, how will these acting managers help in the recruitment of lower level posts? It seems there is a kind of a disjuncture somewhere."
Thomas said the advertised 300 included senior managers.
"If I can put it in a nutshell, all senior management posts have been advertised and will be filled soon."
Interrogating the HOD further, Pakati asked how long it would take to fill them. Thomas replied by saying the organogram was new and took into account their extended mandate which included agrarian reform.
Pakati asked: "Is this the new strategy or the new structure that is a problem? If HOD is talking about new strategy and new organogram, we should have had a report that said the new strategy has failed."
Thomas was also asked how long some of his top officials had been on an acting basis.
He responded by saying it was between six months and a year. Pakati warned him he was under oath.
MEC Zoleka Capa came to Thomas' defence saying the problems were a result of the mandate of the department being expanded from just agriculture and rural development to adding agrarian reform.
"Due to these changes it led to serious need of alignment of the lower structures," said Capa.
Thomas said some staff resigned, while others died.
Source: Daily Dispatch via I-Net Bridge
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