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The Standing Committee on Public Accounts (Scopa) will undertake an oversight visit to the South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC) in Auckland Park and to the South African Post Office (Sapo) at its head office in Centurion on Tuesday and Wednesday next week.

Scopa has committed to continuous engagement with the SABC to clear its irregular expenditure of about R5bn and fruitless and wasteful expenditure of about R127m. The Committee will also have a meeting with the interim Board and Management of the SABC.

“We want to get the SABC right. This will see Scopa engaging with the leadership of the SABC until we are satisfied that the financial mismanagement rot is cleansed and good governance, adherence to the PFMA and National Treasury regulations have become common cause,” said the Chairperson of Scopa, Mr Themba Godi.

The Committee is eagerly waiting for the investigation report on the totality of the irregularity of irregular, fruitless and wasteful expenditure by the end of March 2017. This visit is to familiarise the Committee with the practical situation in the human resources department, supply chain management section, internal audit section and meeting the company contracted to investigate the irregular, fruitless and wasteful expenditure.

Mr Godi said: “The SABC, like all public institutions, must be accountable to Parliament. Leaders of these institutions must never make public statements that suggest that accountability to Parliament has a negative impact. Accountability is a political and a constitutional right. Officials must choose their words carefully.”

The meeting with the Post Office comes at the end of the Committee’s engagements over the South African Social Security Agency (Sassa) debacle. The Committee is interested to get the history of engagement between the Post Office and the Department of Social Development/Sassa on the disbursement of social grants.

“It is our unconfirmed understanding that the ministerial advisory committee had a number of meetings with the Post Office and as early as September 2014 had recommended amongst other things the use of the Post Office as from 1 April 2017,” Mr Godi said.

The Committee also wants to gain a picture of the Post Offices’ capacity and state of readiness to disburse social grants as articulated in its Constitutional Court submissions, if it is given an opportunity to do so. Sassa management has also been invited to attend the meeting with the Post Office.

Issued by Parliamentary Communication Services on behalf of the Chairperson of Scopa, Mr Themba Godi