Mr. Speaker, I move—

Mr. Speaker, I do not believe that anybody can regard this particular debate as being a happy occasion for this Parliament. In fact, the importance of the occasion is underlined by the fact that it is probably almost 20 years since this sort of time has been set aside for the discussion of a report of the Select Committee on Public Accounts. I think this underlines the importance which all members of the House, including the Leader of the House, attach to this particular matter.

We are faced here with a report which can only cause concern, not only in this House, but also with the public in general. There is a unanimous recommendation from all parties that there should be an in-depth investigation into the management and financial control of the Department of Information. All members of the committee, irrespective of their political affiliations, felt that they were so perturbed at the poor internal control, the inefficient utilization of staff and the failure to comply with financial regulations, that this report was unanimously adopted. All these points were agreed to unanimously by an all-party committee. I think it is not inappropriate, right at the very beginning of this debate, to pay tribute to the chairman of the committee for his handling of the affairs of that committee, and for his courageous actions on many occasions. I want to say the same for quite a number of his colleagues who, in the deliberations which took place, to my mind put State before party. I want to pay tribute to those members for the approach they took to this particular matter.

Mr. Speaker, we have had unauthorized expenditure before in this Parliament. We have commented on it and we have pointed out the undesirability of these matters, but we have ratified it. Never in recent history, however, has there been a case such as this. I want to say that there are items of unauthorized expenditure which the committee unanimously agreed should be ratified because they were in a different category. We would have expected that a department faced with this situation would be somewhat contrite, would promise to put its house in order so that we could face the situation in quite a different manner. That, however, is not the case. On the contrary. Without waiting for the judgment of this House, without waiting for the judgment of Parliament, a counter-attack was launched by the department challenging the authority of the State. We have the uncontradicted report of the Auditor-General to the effect that Treasury regulations, financial regulations and Tender Board instructions have been ignored. What was the reaction? The head of the department went on the attack. Let me just quote one instance, from the Sunday papers, of what he said—

That is what he said in Rapport. To other newspapers he said that the department committed technical offences. In another newspaper he said the following—

The fact that this was never advanced as a defence at any of the hearings, and is unrelated to the proven facts, is ignored. The fact is that the existence of the regulations, imposed by the Government in this regard, has not been shown to have inhibited any actions of the department. The head of the department has decided, and I quote—

The attack goes on. There are newspaper reports, some of them anonymous or unsigned and others duly signed. All indicate that instead of obeying the rules, they want to abolish the rules in so far as they apply to them. They even make a Press statement attacking a political party on the matter, though they did not have the courage to raise that matter in the Committee and have it investigated. This is not a challenge to the Opposition in this House. This is a challenge to the Auditor-General as the watchdog of Parliament, to the Public Accounts Committee as the investigatory instrument of the House of Assembly and to the State itself.

The Auditor-General is an essential safeguard against abuse, and I think that the public can be proud that it has an Auditor-General with the courage, integrity and ability of the present incumbent. The State has regulations and those regulations are essential when millions of rand of the taxpayers’ money are handled by public servants. This money is trust money. It is the public’s money and it must be handled with the care with which trust money should be handled. These regulations are in our view, and I believe in the view of the members of the Government of this country, essential safeguards, and a challenge to those regulations cannot be tolerated. If it had been shown that the unauthorized expenditure and the flagrant disregard of the rules, as has been the case, could not have been avoided without having hampered the work of the department, and if a case had been made out for amendments, amendments having duly been suggested for dealing with the situation, one could have given the matter some attention because no rules are immutable. To question the need for the existence of these rules, however, is quite a different matter. I think my colleagues on the Committee, irrespective of party ties, will support me when I say that in no way would the department’s work have been hampered if the rules had been obeyed in the instances referred to in the report. The truth is that money was paid out, when it was not due, on the certificate of the head of the department. In that certificate it was also certified that goods had been received when clearly they had not been received. A false letter, which constituted a fraudulent misrepresentation, was also written by a contractor to the State under very strange circumstances. Those are the facts which are not in dispute in regard to this matter. When this and other wrongs are exposed, we expect some kind of apology to the public. We expect some kind of remorse, but we certainly do not expect acts of defiance. The demand which has been made in respect of these rules represents a challenge to the authority of the State and of Parliament, and that cannot be tolerated by any member of the House.

Let us examine the implications of what has happened here. Firstly, the taxpayer is going to ask the question: Is the money which is being levied from me being adequately safeguarded? I am pleased that the hon. the Minister of Finance is here. I believe that he is here at some inconvenience to himself and we appreciate it. In terms of his economic policy he has called for savings by the Government in particular years. Has that policy not been sabotaged by having money, which was not yet due for payment, paid out so that it should not go back to the Exchequer? Thirdly, has the image of the Department of Information and its credibility abroad and in South Africa not been seriously damaged?

The fourth question is: What must be the reaction of the public to Government campaigns, which we and all members of the House support, to buy South African products, to use South African services and to save foreign exchange, when the public see an important Government department blatantly not only ignoring the appeals to do so, but also ignoring the Tender Board instructions which are laid down for the State in this regard? Fifthly, can South Africa afford to have a Department of Information that conducts its affairs in the manner shown in this report? Sixthly, is a department entitled to shelter from accusations of inefficiency and worse under the cloak of the alleged sensitivity of some of its activities when those activities are in no way sensitive and it is in fact not justified to seek to do that? Seventhly, what is in fact the Minister’s responsibility when a state of affairs as here demonstrated is exposed? What is the Minister’s own position? What action must be taken here? Is the Minister not being tested? He has got to tell us how he has acted in the past to ensure that these things did not happen and how he will deal with the situation. It is on that reply that he will be judged by the House. In the eighth place, may I ask: Are the wrongs exposed perhaps not merely symptoms of a disease and will further investigation not expose more symptoms and in reality perhaps a very serious disease? The public is going to ask, and ask very clearly, what is being done to remedy the shortcomings in this department. The last of the questions that need to be answered is this: As this is a matter which involves public money and in which there is public interest, is a secret interdepartmental inquiry adequate? Must there not be a full investigatory inquiry with the powers and the machinery to investigate and to present a report to Parliament which will also be seen by the public? These are the questions that need to be answered in this debate. I believe that the facts will speak louder than any arguments that can be advanced. I say that this is a test for the Government and the hon. the Minister of Information on how they and he will react to this situation because that will be the true test of their ability to govern South Africa.

I want to deal with the question of the “Buy South Africa” campaign and with the question of cutting public expenditure. As I have indicated, when the hon. the Minister of Finance promises the public to cut public expenditure and appeals to departments to save, because he needs to safeguard the reserves and to combat inflation, what must the public’s attitude be when officials on their own admission paid money when the contract for the services expressly provided that only a limited amount of R180 000 need have been paid in the financial year in question and the balance of approximately R129 000 in the next financial year and that only when the job was completed? In fact, the whole amount was paid in the earlier financial year although the job had not been completed at all and not one single book for which payment had been made was in existence. I ask the hon. Minister of Finance whether this is not sabotage of his efforts on behalf of the economy of South Africa. While the public is encouraged to buy South African and foreign exchange is in short supply, contracts are being concluded for printing work to be done overseas and Tender Board regulations in respect of local preferences are ignored. In addition, the head of the department admits that he did not ask the Reserve Bank if he could spend foreign currency in this manner and he only finds out the eventual position when he gives evidence again a lot later.

Let me read what the policy of the State is as it was given in evidence by the Auditor-General. I read from paragraph 393—

We give incentive for exports, and what is fascinating is that printing work here was done in Spain. One of the truths of the matter is that the work could be done at that price because the Spanish Government gives, and gave at the time, incentives which enabled a lower price than normal to be stipulated. But our own people, our own incentives, our own regulations to encourage this are ignored. When we talk about how departments have saved, I would like to quote, if I may, to the hon. Minister of Information his own words in this House. I quote from Hansard, 10 May 1977, col. 7293—

That is the impression he then sought to create in this House. Now, Sir, let me tell you what the department itself does. In the annual reports of the department for the years in question we get the same tale told to us. I read from the 1975 report of the department—

Hon. members must remember that this is now in December 1975—

What does the report on 1976—and that is also important—say? I quote—

They go on—and I will not quote it at length—as to what has to be done in this regard. While they are telling us this we sit here and we do not know that this department has, as its policy, that when it gets to the end of the financial year, as has been demonstrated in this instance, it tries to create a situation that—at the kindest—it has to spend the money so that it does not go back to the Treasury. That is what happened in this particular instance. That is how this, in fact, took place. The question that has to be asked is: How does John Citizen know that his interests are being protected in these circumstances?

I would like to come to the hon. the Minister himself and his position in this matter. Let me say in the first place that we asked in evidence whether in respect of these matters, particularly the one at issue, there had been a discussion with the hon. the Minister. I want to read it so that there can be no question about it. I am referring to the Van Rensburg case. I asked the following question (Question 139, S.C. 1A—’78)—

The somewhat arrogant answer was given—

Question 140—

The reply—

I want to make it quite clear that I think in this initial phase—I do not attach blame where it does not exist—the hon. the Minister can readily say that he was not involved. The question then to be asked is: Where does some of the information that the hon. the Minister gives to this House come from? Let me give a couple of examples. A question was asked on 10 February 1976. From the evidence it is quite clear that the question was asked at a time when we did not have all the books delivered. I refer to col. 166 of Hansard, Vol. 64, Question 238—

1. (a) What were the titles of books bought from South African publishers by his department during 1975, (b)(i) how many copies of each title were bought and (ii) from which publishers and (c) what was the total cost of books bought from each publisher?

In the reply certain books are listed, one of which is Stepping into the Future. According to the reply 80 000 copies were purchased from Erudita Publications for R238 560. Where did the hon. the Minister get that figure from? Either he is being led along and given wrong information or something else is amiss. I genuinely do not believe—I want to say it to the hon. the Minister across the floor—that he would deliberately mislead this House. I do not believe it.

Let us go further because we have lots of other questions. A whole series of questions is asked of the hon. the Minister about what payments there have been and what prepayments there have been. The series of questions was published as recently as 31 March 1978. I put question 256—

1. (1) What firms of (a) advertising agents, (b) publishers and (c) printers were employed by his department during the period 1 April 1974 to date;
2. (2) what amount was payable to each firm on each contract entered into during this period;
3. (3) whether any advance payments were made in respect of each contract; if so, what advance payments.

I do not want to read the long list of advance payments in respect of matters which are not relevant to this, but let me read some. In col. 490 (Questions, 31 March 1978) we find in connection with Erudita Publications that the amount is now correctly given as R320 000, but in answer to the question whether an advance payment was made, Hansard said “None”. Where did that come from? That is not the only one. If we look at col. 498 we find in connection with A Guide to Foreign Investors that Hansard again says “None” on the question of advance payments. The amount given in reply to the second part of the question is R10 000. We know that the total amount is R30 000 and the amount of R10 000 therefore forms part of the total amount. If we look at col. 504-5 we see, again in respect of A Guide to Foreign Investors, (2) R10 000 and (3) None, and in respect of Health of a People, (2) R45 500 and (3) None. In col. 507 the following information is given in respect of This is the Transkei, (2) R27 500 and (3) None. Where does this information come from?

Let us look at what the hon. the Minister has told the House. What are some of the facts he has told the House? On 5 May 1976, when all the books had not been delivered, he said (Hansard, Vol. 62, col. 6007)—

Where did he get that from? It is clearly not true. The hon. the Minister continued—

It is not true; it was sold for R4 a copy and never R3 a copy. The hon. the Minister then gave a long explanation in col. 6008, but that explanation differs completely from the evidence we heard before the Select Committee. I wish I had the time to read the whole explanation in col. 6008 as to how the publisher was involved for a solid 18 months. Sure, he was eventually because the final books were only delivered in August 1976. August 1976 is the tragedy of this. Payment was made in March 1975—that is to say, before the end of the 1975 financial year. That is the story. I can go on quoting from the annual report and I can quote from the 1977 debate. One of my hon. colleagues in another Opposition party has the Hansard of that debate with him, and I am sure he may read the House some of it as well. Where did the hon. the Minister get this information from and why is the hon. the Minister being put in a position in the House where he has to give us incorrect information? The question is: What is the hon. the Minister going to do about it? In so far as the hon. the Minister is concerned, I should like to state that I am not in this debate asking for his resignation or for him to be removed. There is another report coming which I cannot debate today. However, the test of the hon. the Minister will be his explanation of this and, thereafter, what he does to remedy the situation. Otherwise we might well decide that we should suggest to the House that the hon. the Minister should devote his fulltime activities to the Department of Plural Relations and Development. The hon. the Minister is today being put on test.

I should also like to deal very briefly with the question of the damage to the Department of Information. I should like to invite you, Mr. Speaker, to read the evidence as it has been given in the Committee to see how there, in fact, is a reckless disclosure of information and how matters were raised which are utterly irrelevant. There has been some considerable publicity to the question of the “koop van joernaliste”. However, if one looks at the record of the evidence one sees that that answer was entirely irrelevant to what was taking place. If one reads the record properly one sees that even more damaging statements are contained in it. The hon. member for Parktown will deal with this aspect. These damaging statements were volunteered on irrelevant matters. To do what? If the questions would have been answered directly and had not been evasive, there would have been a different situation altogether. However, when one asks a simple question as to why there needs to be Treasury consent in the case of one book and why it is not needed in the case of another book, that kind of information was given. Whatever the explanation is that is given afterwards, I find it unbelievable that that must take place. Let us look at the explanation which was given afterwards. I read from The Citizen—

Order! As the hon. member has said, the letter handed in by the Secretary for Information was irrelevant to the whole matter under investigation and it remains irrelevant.

Mr. Speaker, I accept your ruling that it is irrelevant, but I invite people to read The Citizen of 17 April 1978 to see what damaging replies were given in explanation.

We need an inquiry, we need a public inquiry and that is why I wish to move as an amendment—

I want to stress that I believe that we have to look at what our image is going to be in the outside world, what our image is going to be as regards our ability to project ourselves. I want to say, so that there should be no misunderstanding, that I do not doubt the Secretary’s sincerity, his loyalty to try and do his best for South Africa or the fact that he has many talents which can be put to good use for South Africa and which, perhaps, can still continue to be used for South Africa. However, we have to look at the department as a whole and we have to look at the image which is projected. I want to give a simple example. I could quote at length from the records of the proceedings. I want to ask a very simple question. We have the situation that a letter was written which was, admittedly, a fraudulent representation against the State. In a statement made by Mr. Van Rensburg and which was initially given to the Auditor-General, it was suggested that this was done at the request of the department. There is a denial by two officials. They say that they merely pointed out that the money would have to go back and that they did not ask for a false letter in the circumstances. That is how it is projected. However, when a letter is then written which asks for delivery instructions, the Secretary, who receives the letter, himself authorizes payment and himself signs that it has been received when it was not. But he does not give any delivery instructions. A long period of time then elapses until the auditor comes, a period in which no action is taken. When the books did not turn up, surely somebody must have asked what this fraudulent letter was doing in their files. No explanation is given as to why there were no delivery instructions and why nothing was done. Can this House tolerate a situation of this kind?

I do not want to deal with the evidence in detail, as it is there for anyone to read. I can analyse and show how different things changed as we went along. However, the truth we in these benches are concerned about, is how South Africa’s interests are going to be served by the Department of Information, what the hon. the Minister is going to do to put it right and how the taxpayers’ money is going to be safeguarded in the future.

Mr. Speaker, it is true, as the hon. member for Yeoville said, that it has been a long time since a report of the Select Committee on Public Accounts has aroused so much emotion. It is also true that it has been a long time since the Select Committee has adopted a resolution of the scope and seriousness as the one which is being considered here in this House today. Later on, in my speech I shall deal with the matters raised by the hon. member for Yeoville. I cannot discuss all of them at length and consequently I shall be able to refer to a few of them only. I think it is necessary for us to put this matter into perspective today.

As long ago as last year, it leaked out for some reason—I do not know why—that the Auditor-General was auditing the books of the Department of Information. Since that time some English-language newspapers, the Sunday Times and the Sunday Express to be specific, have been engaged in a campaign to create an atmosphere by outlining certain peculiarities completely unrelated to the work of the Auditor-General. We must take cognizance of the fact that this spirit was created and that there was collaboration to create this spirit.

Order! The hon. member must make no further references to that aspect as I shall then have to allow a debate on the matter. The hon. member must confine himself as far as possible to the investigation and to the report.

Mr. Speaker, I respect your ruling. I shall therefore proceed to the next matter. I want to link up the statement which I am going to make now with an insinuation made by the hon. member for Yeoville, which I think is unworthy of him.

I am referring to the insinuation he made when he said that he did not want to call for the resignation of the hon. the Minister now, but that there were matters which were still being investigated. By saying that he was insinuating directly that he might possibly call for the resignation of the hon. the Minister at some later stage. The Select Committee was still dealing with that matter. If he accuses other people of involving irrelevant matters in this, how can the hon. member do so himself today? After all, the hon. member knows what they have been doing. The hon. member has had questions on the Question Paper in connection with the Department of Information ever since Parliament assembled this year. And afterwards, as regular as clockwork, we have seen further discussions on these things in the Press. This was followed by stories about the questions which hon. members had asked here. Have these hon. members, the Official Opposition, decided that in addition to the investigation being undertaken by the Auditor-General, certain sections of the Press, together with them, should also undertake an investigation as it pleases them?

Are replies to questions not in the public interest?

We cannot get away from the fact that the Official Opposition is doing something outside Parliament which has a bearing on the work of the Auditor-General. I want to put it very clearly that the Select Committee is an extension of Parliament. And I associate myself with the hon. member for Yeoville in saying that a debate ought not to take place in the Press while the Select Committee is engaged in its work. It is not in the interests of good order for such a debate to take place. I say the Select Committee is an extension of Parliament, and I think it is a good thing for us to draw attention to the fact that in South Africa, a country which is always being accused of many things, we follow a system on the basis of which we can rightly tell the taxpayer: “Here is a watchdog, created by Parliament itself, which ensures that your money is spent properly.”

Furthermore, it is important for us to point out that the office of the Auditor-General in South Africa is an office which is independent of the Public Service machinery in the ordinary sense of the word. The Auditor-General has to make his report to this Parliament. The Auditor-General does not have to make his report to the accounting officer or to a Minister in the first instance; he has to make his report to this Parliament. This must be so, because if one takes a look at any debate conducted in this House, one sees that most of its time and attention is devoted to financial and economic affairs. A budget debate is conducted which lasts approximately six weeks, a debate in which the political policy of the Government is stated and one in which the Opposition has every opportunity to question the Ministers and the Prime Minister about their policy and about the expenditure of the money voted. Sub-sequent to that, after the money has been voted by Parliament, another phase comes into operation. The money then passes to the control of the departments, and the head of a department is the secretary who is the accounting officer ex officio.

I want to stand by every word of the findings of the Select Committee. I do not agree with the procedures which were followed, and not only by the Department of Information. We also felt that the other departments, the names of which are mentioned in the report—Water Affairs, Forestry, etc.—could possibly have acted in a more satisfactory way, although their explanations were more acceptable. Consequently we accepted it as such. By majority vote we also accepted in the Select Committee that it was the duty of the Select Committee to come back to this House and to present it with one of the two possible resolutions a Select Committee could adopt in a case such as this. Mr. Speaker, you yourself know that a Select Committee can adopt only one of two resolutions. In the first place, a Select Committee may decide not to recommend to Parliament that unauthorized expenditure be authorized. This means that the unauthorized expenditure concerned is to be recovered from some person. One of the things underlying a resolution of this nature will be a decision by the Select Committee that the State has suffered a loss.

Indeed, it is the function of the Select Committee and of the Auditor-General to determine whether the money earmarked by Parliament for a certain purpose, has in fact been spent correctly. If it is found that the money has not been spent correctly, it has to be determined whether the State has suffered any loss in the process.

I challenge the hon. member for Yeoville—since he is insisting on a commission of inquiry—to prove where evidence was given to the Select Committee with regard to the Department of Information’s unauthorized expenditure, which indicated that the Government had suffered any loss. The hon. member advanced no argument to indicate that the State had suffered any loss. In fact, the Department of Information did not deny that the unauthorized expenditure concerned was regarded by them as being unauthorized. In fact, the Secretary for Information admitted in his evidence that the expenditure was unauthorized.

However, what was a cause of concern to the Select Committee—and it is right and proper to state categorically that we cannot condone a procedure like this—is the way in which the unauthorized expenditure concerned had been incurred. Consequently, the Select Committee could take no other resolution but to recommend to this House that the unauthorized expenditure be authorized. I want to state categorically that I believe that the evidence before this House indicates that the Select Committee conducted a very thorough investigation into the circumstances surrounding the unauthorized expenditure. I also state categorically that not a single jot or tittle of proof of the State having suffered any loss whatsoever emerged from the circumspect investigation that was conducted.

Surely that is wrong. The State did suffer a loss. What about the interest lost by the State?

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member for Yeoville must not raise that argument with me. Nor must he try to continue his argument by means of interjections. The only thing I want to argue, is the report which is under discussion at the moment. I do not intend to repeat the evidence contained in the report. If hon. members of the Official Opposition want to present their case in that way, they are welcome to do so. I want to refer to the work which the Select Committee did. I repeat that there was no evidence that the State had suffered any loss. This, of course, is what the taxpayer must know. The Select Committee did not find that the State had suffered any loss. In fact, the Committee found that the State had suffered no loss. That is why the Select Committee is able to recommend to Parliament with a clear conscience that the unauthorized expenditure concerned be authorized. This is the crux of the matter.

The hon. member for Yeoville is welcome to put his questions to the hon. the Minister. I am sure the hon. the Minister will reply to them. However, the hon. member is not debating the motion before this House. Nor is he debating the question as to why the Select Committee recommended that the unauthorized expenditure be authorized. The hon. member is aware of the fact that Parliament has to pass specific legislation when it comes to unauthorized expenditure that has to be authorized in the course of the same Parliamentary session. After all, that is the procedure that has to be followed.

But now I want to go further and refer to the attitude of the hon. member for Yeoville with regard to the commission of inquiry. What were the findings of the Select Committee? The Select Committee found that certain regulations of the Treasury had not been complied with. Furthermore, the Select Committee found that there was a lack of coordination, etc., in the administration of the Department of Information. These were the two findings of the Select Committee. Now the hon. member for Yeoville is asking for a commission of inquiry to be appointed. He also asks that the investigation be an open one. The hon. member for Bezuidenhout even spoke of a judicial inquiry. But the Select Committee did not find that the State had suffered any loss. So there is no reason to ask for a judicial inquiry or any other form of investigation into the matter.

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member for Schweizer Reneke contends that I have asked for a judicial inquiry. Can he tell me where and when I did so?

If I am not mistaken, Mr. Speaker, it was in the Sunday Times of last Sunday.

You are mistaken.

If I am mistaken, I shall apologize to the hon. member, but since the hon. member has interrupted me, may I ask that Opposition this: On what occasion in the past have they ever accepted the findings of a commission, whether a judicial commission or an ordinary commission of inquiry, if it did not suit them to do so? So of what use is it in any event? The issue here is that the Select Committee found that the State had not suffered any loss. In other words, although the instructions of the Treasury had not been complied with, the State did not suffer any loss. Therefore, there can be no question of a commission of inquiry. We want to prevent the State suffering losses. What would be the best thing to do? The instructions of the Treasury were not complied with, and what we are asking now, is for the Treasury to ensure that the Department of Information does comply with the instructions of the Treasury. This is what we are asking for in the first place. In the second place, the Secretary for Information himself said in his evidence that he was experiencing problems in connection with administration. He said that professional staff had to do administrative work, and that hose people were not sufficiently competent and qualified to do that administrative work. So the obvious thing to do is to ask the Public Service Commission, which is the body which deals with staff matters, to ensure that the Department of Information does get the staff, or if it does have the staff, that that staff is used correctly. That is the task of the Public Service Commission.

If we do appoint a commission of inquiry, it will not only be the evidence which the Select Committee has already taken that will have to be repeated; the commission will have to hear evidence from the Treasury and from the Public Service Commission so as to be able to decide what it ultimately has to do. So why waste time and money by appointing such a commission while we already have the machinery to do what we are asking? This is what is so fine about our system. We have the Select Committee and we have the Auditor-General, and if our recommendation is accepted and an investigation is conducted by the Treasury and the Public Service Commission, the Select Committee will receive the replies to our resolutions via the Auditor-General next year. We shall learn at that time what was done by the Public Service Commission and the Treasury with regard to this matter.

The reply would be contained in a short paragraph.

It may be a short paragraph, but the Select Committee is free to ask the Auditor-General to submit detailed information to the Committee. From that it will be possible to ascertain to what extent the Committee’s resolution had been carried into effect. There is no argument which can be advanced by hon. members on the opposite side which will make me change my standpoint that the best method of settling this matter is in fact to have the investigation conducted by the Treasury and the Public Service Commission. To my mind there is no reason to come to this House with any other argument. I am satisfied that the unauthorized expenditure that was incurred, should in fact be authorized as the State did not suffer any loss.

Having said all this in support of the motion before this House, I want to say that there are nevertheless some things which disturb one somewhat. The Auditor-General told us in evidence that they could carry out a proper audit in the small percentage of cases only. For the rest auditing is carried out by means of random tests. While I want to state that I disapprove most strongly of the non-compliance of rules and regulations, I am as concerned on the other hand about the fact that if the situation described by the Auditor-General in his evidence to us persists, we may experience problems in future.

I believe it will be a good thing for us to seek ways and means of ensuring that we obtain even better audit reports from the Auditor-General, for instance by making use of the private sector so as to complement the existing need for staff. Bodies such as control boards, Bantu Administration Boards and other semi-Government organizations can then have their audit inspections carried out by these auditors. I personally am concerned about this situation.

Sir, I want to conclude by asking this House to see the report of the Select Committee in perspective. This House must not drag the report of the Select Committee into the political arena. This House must not get carried away by emotions generated outside to adopt certain standpoints and resolutions which may be irresponsible. It was no easy task to act as chairman of the Select Committee at these meetings. The hon. member for Yeoville is not the easiest man to control. By that I do not mean to say, however, that the hon. member for Yeoville is not doing a good job of work in that Committee. Today, however, he placed me in a very difficult position by congratulating me on the work I do in the Committee. I do not know whether it may perhaps be the “kiss of death”.

Mr. Speaker, in the first place I want to thank the NRP members for having allowed me to speak before they do. As I explained to them, I cannot be here after the lunch adjournment, and therefore I am grateful for the concession they have allowed me.

In the short time allocated to me I can obviously only deal with certain aspects. Firstly, I want to pay tribute to the Auditor-General, who is retiring soon, for the outstanding service he has rendered over very many years. I wish him and his family a happy and fruitful retirement. The chairman deserves special mention for the calm manner in which he controlled the sometimes turbulent waters that flowed through the committee. We do, of course, also appreciate the work of the committee clerks and the people responsible for the publication of this report.

It is not disputed that the officials of the department failed to observe the tender regulations and the Treasury instructions, and it is further admitted, by them, that some of these failures were due to inexperienced professional staff. These facts are not in dispute at all. In the majority report we asked for an in-depth investigation by the Treasury and the Public Service Commission. I believe that this is a correct decision. The evidence shows that Mr. Van Rensburg is completely untrustworthy, unreliable and dishonest. He is a self-confessed liar and his evidence can never be grounds for an inquiry under the Commissions Act.

And the department continues to do business with him.

The hon. member for Yeoville has had his chance. Now I am having mine. [Interjections.] In so far as the failure to comply with the financial requirements are concerned, who are better qualified than the officials of the Treasury to investigate the matter and ensure that there is no repetition? Our Treasury officials have made a name for themselves both inside and outside South Africa, and I challenge any hon. member to tell me that he is not happy with Treasury officials examining that aspect of the matter which relates to the tender regulations and the Treasury instructions. In as far as the inexperienced professional staff is concerned, who is better qualified than the Public Service Commission to rectify that aspect? Let me just mention that the Secretary of the Public Service Commission gave evidence before the committee. We were most impressed by him, and I am fully convinced that he and his department can rectify the situation as far as the inexperienced staff is concerned. I urge that this investigation take place as a matter of urgency because the Department of Information is a highly sensitive and vital department, and all this adverse publicity is not doing South Africa any good.

On the information available to us, it has been found that the goods and services to the value of the unauthorized expenditure, i.e. R396 500, have all been furnished. According to the evidence placed before us, full value has now been received. I heard the hon. member for Yeoville and some other hon. member, I think the Chief Whip, mention the question of loss of interest. Loss of interest is the only possible loss that the State could have suffered in relation to the advance payments, and in order to establish what that loss is, if any, one has to see where the money came from, what interest the money was earning and what period was covered by the advance payment. If one finds that that particular money was earning no interest, there has been no loss to the State. If one finds, however, that that money was earning interest for the State, quite obviously there will have been a small loss. I have no doubt, however, that if the Treasury finds that there has been a small loss, the Treasury will have no trouble whatsoever in recovering that money from the publisher who will then owe that money. Urgency and thoroughness are the keynotes of this investigation. Having heard the witnesses, I have no doubt whatsoever that the investigation team will enjoy their fullest co-operation. However, if any witness does not co-operate with the investigation team or if any witness inside or outside the Service—some witnesses come from outside the Public Service Commission— refuses to co-operate, the investigation team can always call for a commission of inquiry. Sir, we saw these witnesses, they appeared before us, and I have no doubt whatsoever that they will co-operate with this investigation team to the fullest. The Department of Information has done invaluable work for South Africa and the longer the delay in reaching finality the more it will have a paralyzing effect on the efforts of the department. This the country cannot afford. At the same time, however, I have no doubt that, if the investigation team finds that there are matters that are not right, they will ensure that those matters are put right and are drawn pertinently to our attention.

My own impression is that Mr. Van Rensburg and the companies associated with him are largely responsible for the bulk of the unauthorized expenditure. They played a key role that must be analysed today. If the Treasury examines the balance sheets of Mr. Van Rensburg and his company, I have no doubt that they will find that he has a liquidity problem in those companies. Obviously, he would not have succeeded in these claims if the officials concerned had followed the correct procedures and the terms of the contract. Mr. Speaker, I am going to prove to you that he managed to convince not only the officials of the Department of Information but also the Auditor-General’s staff that he was not to blame for the fact that he put in a false claim for payment not due. There was no evidence that any official stood to gain a single cent from the system of advanced payment. The only one who gained was Mr. Van Rensburg and the companies he was associated with. For example, in respect of the contract for the publication Stepping into the Future, Mr. Van Rensburg wrote to the department on behalf of Erudita Publications on 28 May 1974, offering them the book, and one of the terms was payment within 30 days of the completion of the book by the Spanish printer. In addition to that he asked for an initial 15% deposit. This stipulation, read together with the other evidence I will produce, shows the liquidity problem I referred to. The Department then committed itself to the contract and agreed to pay the 15% deposit. Erudita also advised that the publication and the work would be completed in November/December 1974, while the work was not completed by that date. The department advised Erudita Publications that it was entitled to pay R180 000 in the Government’s financial year of 1974-’75 towards the total purchase price and the balance within two calendar months of the ensuing financial year, i.e. by 31 May 1975. It is important to note that the department was not compelled in terms of the contract to pay the balance until after 31 March 1975. Yet Erudita received payment of the full amount before that because they lied, they told a blatant untruth, in a letter to the department dated 24 March 1975 in which they certified that the work had been completed. On 6 December 1974 Erudita sent a report setting out the work that had been done and in this letter they seemed to indicate a completion date of February 1975. They also sent in an account for R35 000. On the strength of these facts, they received on 9 December 1974 a part-payment of R35 000 on account while this should never have been received by them.

Mr. Van Rensburg admitted, when questioned, that he had a cash flow problem and that was why he had asked for the money. I want to prove that Mr. Van Rensburg had a cash flow problem because it relates to his veracity in this matter as a whole. I can do it best by quoting some questions and answers from the report. I quote question 555 and the answer to it—

That is absolute nonsense. Mr. Van Rensburg was not entitled to any of that money, because there was nothing in the contract that entitled him to it. I quote further—

To compare his position with progress payments that builders receive is totally ridiculous because he had a contract that did not provide for progress payments and he was not entitled to progress payments. I also quote from question 557—

Mr. Speaker, there can be no doubt that Mr. Van Rensburg was aware that the way he could obtain payment from the department was to encourage the belief that the completion of the book was nearer than it actually was because he knew they were very anxious to have completion of the book. From the answers that he gave me and the answers I have quoted it is obvious that he had a liquidity problem. The most serious aspect of this matter revolves around the question of whether one must believe Mr. Van Rensburg on the one hand, or the two departmental officials on the other hand as to why Erudita put in a false claim, knowing it to be false, on 24 March 1975. A letter which was dated 3 March 1975 was received by the department, reflecting a delay in the completion of the book. Two of the officials of the department interviewed Mr. Van Rensburg and, according to them, they put pressure on him to urgently have the book completed. I want to mention the fact that Dr. E. M. Rhoodie was not one of the two officials present at the time because allegations are made that Mr. Van Rensburg was asked by the officials to send a false letter to the Department of Information. On page 89 of the report, in answer to question 394, Dr. E. Rhoodie said two firms had confirmed that if they had inherited the work at the beginning of March, they could have completed the work before the end of March. Thereafter the department received a letter dated 24 March 1975 from Erudita Publications, and I quote the portion reflecting the absolute falsehoods. It starts with the heading—“Stepping into the Future: Education for South Africa’s Black, Coloured and Indian People.” The letter goes on—

In those two short sentences there are seven lies. Firstly, it is stated that “the publication is now available.” That is lie No. 1. He claims that they “are holding in stock”. That is lie No. 2. Lie No. 3 is “in Madrid”. The figure of “80 000” reflects lie No. 4. The statement that “the books are individually shrink-wrapped” is lie No. 5 and the statement that they are “packed in double-walled cartons” is lie No. 6. The allegation that 24 copies are packed in every carton is lie No. 7. There one has a situation where one has seven lies in one letter and one has Erudita attaching their statements and requesting payment in the same letter, whereupon they obtain payment. The only person to gain from the earlier payment is the firm that actually received the payment. The department had nothing to gain by the earlier payment. Mr. Van Rensburg tried to tell us that although he wrote the false letter on 24 March 1975 he only realized that it was wrong late in 1977, approximately a year and a half later. That was obviously a blatant untruth. It is important that Parliament decide whether Mr. Van Rensburg can be believed or not. I want to quote questions put to him and his replies, and I start with question 657—

That reply does not have a vestige of truth in it.—

Is this a man who can be believed?—

Erudita Publications asked for payment and then they thought it funny when the money was paid to them.—

?—(Mnr. Van Rensburg.) Maar ons skryf altyd sulke briewe. Ek weet nie of u die Staat ken wanneer dit by betaling kom nie; jy kan somtyds ’n maand op jou tjek wag. Ek het al in verband met sekere boeke ’n rekening ingedien waarop staan “would you please pay” en dan betaal hulle eers vyf of ses weke daarna.

Mnr. T. Aronson.] Hoeveel geld het die Departement van Inligting u as gevolg van u brief van 24 Maart betaal?—(Mnr. Van Rensburg.) Hulle het die taak geheel en al binne die betrokke finansiële jaar gefinaliseer.

Mnr. T. Aronson.] Hoeveel geld was dit?—(Mnr. Van Rensburg.) Ek weet nie wat die presiese bedrag is nie; miskien was dit R200 000. Ek dink die bedrag word in die stukke tot die Komitee se beskikking vermeld. Ek weet in elk geval dat dit die voile bedrag was wat in daardie stadium uitstaande was. Ek het intussen die besonderhede nageslaan. Dit was R60 560 en R178 000.

Mnr. T. Aronson.] Altesame was dit ’n bedrag van bykans R240 000. Het u nie, toe u die bedrag van byna R240 000 ontvang, besef dat u nie daarop geregtig is nie?—(Mnr. Van Rensburg.) By my was dit nie ’n geval van geregtig of nie geregtig nie; ek het geweet dat ons die werk binne ’n kwessie van vyf weke tegnies afgehandel sou hê.

This can never justify his claim.—

Devaluation could never have been an issue at that point in time because that was March 1975 and devaluation only took place some six months later. Therefore, that explanation can never be acceptable.—

*Then I put it as follows in question 670—

†Mr. Van Rensburg may have done good work for the department …

Who is this Van Rensburg? Is it Horace?

No, it is not Horace. [Interjections.] However, there can be no doubt in the mind of any fair-minded person that Mr. Van Rensburg obtained a cheque of R238 500 under false pretences and that he knew the consequences of his action. I have no doubt that Mr. Van Rensburg, when he was writing that letter, knew that he was committing an act of dishonesty. So, for him to say that he only became aware of the situation in 1977 is a blatant untruth. In fairness to Mr. Van Rensburg I should like to say … [Interjections.] … that the evidence obviously indicates that he subsequently gave value for the money he received. [Interjections.] Mr. Van Rensburg even managed to convince Mr. Barrie, the Auditor-General, that only the officials of the department were to blame. I should like to quote from page 59 of the report. [Interjections.] I do not know whether I understood Mr. Barrie correctly, but he says …

Order! The hon. member may not discuss the Auditor-General. However, if he is only reading out the evidence he may proceed.

I am just quoting the evidence. The evidence reads—

My view is that Mr. Van Rensburg did not have to know the Tender Board regulations to know that he was not entitled to receive R35 000 on 9 December 1974 or the R238 500 on 25 March 1975.

But who paid him?

The hon. member for Yeoville is constantly interjecting. At least I did not do what he did. In the course of the inquiry he started a fight with one of the officials on the language issue in South Africa. [Interjections.] If one reads the evidence about every contract, there is no doubt that Mr. Van Rensburg throughout the course of events took advantage of everybody. He could, however, not have succeeded if the Treasury and Tender Board procedures had been complied with by the department. Because Mr. Van Rensburg succeeded it is obvious that our only alternative is to make sure that there is never a repetition, and thus we recommended an investigation.

I should like to appeal to the hon. the Minister to urge that the investigation be finalized urgently and, thereafter, to take the public in his confidence, in this way restoring confidence in his department. The hon. the Minister owes this not only to the officials of his department, but also to the country in view of the fact that it is important that the Department of Information must stand above reproach. As can be seen from page 163 of the Committee’s report, the Department of Information on its own part has taken steps to improve the situation and to ensure that there is no repetition. The Treasury and the Public Service Commission must satisfy themselves beyond all doubt that there can never be a repetition.

Now crawl across the floor!

Mr. Speaker, before raising a few other matters I first want to react, here and now, to what the hon. member for Yeoville had to say. He referred to the Government members on the Select Committee and said: “They put the State before their party.” I just want to say to the hon. member that we on this side of the House have always, in all circumstances, put the State above our party. We have never yet put the Sunday Times above the State.

The hon. member for Yeoville went on to say that the Select Committee did make a recommendation but that further investigation should be instituted in public. What the hon. member is asking for is surely a blot on the name of the Auditor-General, of the Select Committee which investigated the matter, of the Treasury and of the Public Service. Through his amendment he wants to make out that these bodies did not do their work properly. What is far worse, however, is that he said that this should be done in public. Does the hon. member wish to intimate thereby that the Select Committee, which does not conduct investigations in public, connived with the Public Service and the Treasury behind the scenes?

Why did you vote against your own people in the Committee?

I want to tell the hon. member that he must not cast suspicion on the work of the Auditor-General after having praised him. The Auditor-General did a sound job and submitted a report which was considered. The hon. member also made out that the department had done absolutely nothing after this matter had come to their attention. In the course of my speech I shall refer briefly to everything that has been done in this connection.

We are now considering this question of unauthorized expenditure. The Auditor-General and the committee found that there had been unauthorized expenditure. How did it occur? Certain unauthorized advance payments were made before the books were received and before the permission of the Treasury had been obtained. Furthermore, advance payments were made before there were guarantees indemnifying the State from loss. We must ask ourselves whether the State has lost anything in any respect in this regard. The hon. Chairman of the Select Committee spelt out very clearly that the State had not lost a cent and we shall be able to prove this conclusively. I am going to refer to a witness who, according to the hon. member for Walmer, is not very reliable. This House must then decide for itself whether the department has wasted money or whether the State has lost anything. With regard to these two publications and the film as well, the Secretary of the department admitted and agreed with the Auditor-General that those expenditures were unauthorized in the light of the regulations of the Treasury and the Auditor-General. On page 173 of the report the Secretary indicated that in his opinion there had been a misunderstanding between the Treasury and the department. The evidence shows very clearly that the Secretary of the Treasury was written to but that the Treasury turned down the application. One of the officers of the department then conducted verbal discussions with the Treasury. According to an auditing regulation the matter had to be followed up in writing. The Treasury then addressed the letter to the Secretary. A mistake was made which had to be rectified. The Secretary also argued that certain problems had been experienced due to a shortage of staff. Paragraph 698 reads that the Auditor-General confirmed this. There were insufficient staff to do this work. This is a trend which is being encountered more and more in all Government departments. I quote from the evidence on page 159 of the report—

However, the hon. member for Yeoville makes a vicious attack on the department and forgets about all the good things that have been done. The department makes a few mistakes and then he makes out that this is the most heinous crime under the sun. The department told us certain things. It stated in the evidence that as far as the publications are concerned it has been the custom for 25 years now that when certain publishers are on the approved list, they do not need to go to the State Tender Board. The hon. member for Yeoville knows that, it is stated there.

What did the Auditor-General say about that?

The Auditor-General pointed it out, but the department rectified it later.

Do not give the House the wrong impression.

The Department of Information has already taken steps in advance, the hon. the Minister saw to it that steps were taken and the Auditor-General saw to it that steps were taken. What steps have been taken to overhaul the administration? That is the question asked in this House today. Has something been done, or has nothing been done? The hon. member for Yeoville knows full well that certain steps have certainly been taken. The Secretary of the department told the Select Committee very clearly what steps had been taken. For the sake of the record I think it is desirable that I should quote paragraph 707, page 163. It reads as follows—

The Department of Information has done this and the hon. member for Yeoville must take cognizance of it. If these things had been done a few years ago and the State machinery had functioned properly as it is functioning now—we know the inspector was there; he has been investigating the matter for a long time—then these regulations would all have been complied with. But the hon. member says nothing about the fact that steps have in fact been taken here.

Only after the Auditor-General had become involved.

The Auditor-General also reported …

You are again giving the House the wrong impression.

The department took consistent action and did its job in that regard.

I should like to refer to further evidence, namely page 187 paragraph 766. It is a question I put myself. It is the normal question we always ask, as that hon. member knows, because he has been sitting in the committees almost as long as I have; we have been asking it consistently for years, viz. whether the department ensured that all the regulations had been complied with, and, if there was a deficiency or a shortcoming, what had been done about it. That is the standard question that has been asked in all the Select Committees over the years. I have been on Select Committees where such questions have been asked for years. Paragraph 766 reads—

In this regard, therefore, the department has made use of the most technical thing in the world, the computer, something which has never been done before. The innumerable regulations have been, fed into the computer and, as I have already quoted and indicated, with all the steps taken, they can see at any moment when the regulations have not been complied with, whether they have been complied with, whether permission has been given etc. Why does the hon. member remain silent about the things which the department has done? Why does he remain silent about the tremendous task of the department, as is clear not only from this investigation but also from the annual report of the department? It points to the tremendous task they are performing overseas and elsewhere in order to keep South Africa’s name from being blackened overseas. Why does the hon. member not offer his help and why does he not see that some thanks is also due to the people who do this work, as they have done it here?

In conclusion I want to refer to a further question I asked. I asked Dr. Rhoodie: “Het u voldoende administratiewe personeel om hierdie werk te behartig?” His reply was: “Nee.” The Auditor-General confirmed this. After all, we cannot overload South Africa’s Public Service from morning to night with additional staff. It must be borne in mind that we have a large State machine. What did hon. members of the Opposition do when Dr. A. D. Wassenaar maintained last year that our State machine was too large? They joined in the attack. They did not concede that it could have been some technical infringement which was committed, something which did in fact occur. Instead of standing by the Government, they attacked it.

Dr. Rhoodie’s reply reads further—

After all, that is so. He goes on to say—

That is what was done. What more does the hon. member expect of any Government department? Does the hon. member for Yeo-ville really want to say that he would want to see all the people in that department dismissed? Is it his wish that the hon. the Minister be dismissed? Is that how he wants things done when, as was the case here, five instances of unauthorized expenditure occur? The whole incident represents only R396 560 out of a total budget of R13 million. Because of this the member is apparently now asking that such drastic action be taken that even the hon. the Minister be dismissed. Surely that is what the hon. member’s earlier insinuation amounts to. He did not put it in so many words, but I predict that he is going to make that request. However I want to warn the hon. member. He must take care that something worse does not befall him at a later stage. He must beware of making too much of a fuss.

Is that a threat? [Interjections.]

Mr. Speaker, I do not wish to threaten the hon. member. However I want to put it very clearly and frankly to him that the Sunday Times regarded him as the horse that runs …

Why did your caucus not choose you as chairman of the committee? [Interjections.]

The Sunday Times saw the hon. member as their winning horse. However, the hon. member failed. The Sunday Times is going to write him off and destroy him. It is not I who is going to do that; it is the Sunday Times. I am warning the hon. member, and I do so frankly and clearly.

When I dwell further on the hon. member for Yeoville, as I am now going to do, I do not do so by virtue of what I saw and experienced in the meetings of the Select Committee. I do so merely as a person who has read the report under discussion. The committee issued the report at the instance of Parliament. Parliament ordered—

Reading this report, a question occurs to me which I want to put to the hon. member for Yeoville. Was he a member of that committee? Did the hon. member take evidence there, or did he attempt to play the part of a public prosecutor? Was it a court of inquisition or did the hon. member try to take evidence as it was his duty to do?

[Inaudible.]

We gave the hon. member a free hand. He took advantage of this to act in a totally unbridled fashion and create an uproar. No-one restrained him in any respect. The hon. member acted in such a way that he even refused to listen to the chairman of the Select Committee when he called him to order. At one point I personally objected to the conduct of the hon. member for Yeoville. My question is whether one is taking evidence when one acts in that way.

However I want to go further and refer once again to the report under discussion. At a certain stage it was decided that two officials should be examined because they had not previously been confronted with the letter written by Mr. Van Rensburg. I now refer to page 107 of the report. Dr. D. O. Rhoodie then appeared before the committee, and the hon. member for Yeoville put certain questions to him. The hon. member asked him five questions, one after the other, in English. I appreciate the fact that the hon. member used his language. That is precisely why I believe in mother tongue education. In any event, he put five questions to Dr. Rhoodie in English, and Dr. Rhoodie replied to all five in English as well. We must bear in mind that that is not Dr. D. O. Rhoodie’s mother tongue. Nevertheless, for the sake of that hon. member, he replied in English.

Now, Sir, I want to quote to you what happened further. In question 444 on page 107 of the committee’s report the hon. member for Yeoville asked the following question—

Dr. D. O. Rhoodie then replied. Actually he addressed the chairman. He was not replying to that hon. member. He addressed his reply to the chairman of the committee. He was addressing the chairman and the whole committee, the majority of whom were Afrikaans-speaking, and he said the following—

What did the hon. member for Yeoville then do? He attacked that official for daring to speak Afrikaans. That hon. member is an Afrikaner hater and a Boerehater. [Interjections.]

That is an absolute untruth. You are a race hater. [Interjections.]

The hon. member states that that is not true. Permit me to quote you what the hon. member for Yeoville then said in question 445. I quote—

He made the accusation that the official giving evidence before him did not want to reply in English. He stressed the words “does not want to reply in English”. That is what that hon. member did. When evidence is given before a Select Committee the person who submits the evidence has the right to speak the language he prefers, just as in the case of any court. He can even ask for an interpreter. However that hon. member acted as if he was not taking evidence but as if it was a court of inquisition in which he, as a public prosecutor, had to go to extremes, and I say that that official was fully entitled to speak Afrikaans. I think I am speaking on behalf of South Africa when I say that English-speaking persons who want to speak English and Afrikaans-speaking persons who want to speak Afrikaans should be able to do so. They are official languages, and can be used as such. But the hon. member went on …

Order! I have permitted the issue of language to be mentioned in the light of what happened, but it is not an aspect which bears any relation to this debate.

Mr. Speaker, I accept your ruling.

This department was attacked by a former member of Parliament who said that the information given by this department in regard to one publication, “Foreign Investors”, was false. It was Dr. Jacobs, the former member for Hillbrow, who said this. This, too, was at issue here and I want to say that this is something that is constantly being done. Suspicion is constantly being cast on this department. In this case suspicion was cast on the official and correct figures given. What happened? The department wrote a letter and tried to determine whether those figures were correct or whether they were false. The evidence was then provided by Prof. Nieuwenhuys, i.e. that the figures were correct and this was mentioned in the evidence. Now I want to make the statement that far too much of this kind of thing is going on. This is then cast in the teeth of the department and it is made out that they are doing things that are wrong. Sir, I do not want to speak for much longer; I do not think it necessary.

Up to now you have said nothing.

Sir, I wish I had an hour at my disposal. If that had been the case that hon. member would have heard a few more things. Unfortunately I have to curtail my speech because it was agreed in advance that we would not speak for a full half hour. However, I just want to refer to one paragraph in which the issue of the book Stepping into the Future is discussed. The question at that time was whether the letter written on 24 March had been falsified and whether the officials had asked the man to write the falsified letter. In the evidence he submitted, Mr. Van Rensburg stated very clearly and frankly that as far as he was concerned neither the department nor anyone else had ever asked him to submit a falsified letter. I quote from the committee’s evidence (page 133, question 573)—

The word is “oorreed”. Do you know what the meaning of that word is?

“Oorreed”. Correct! Nor was it asked, said or suggested. However, there is insinuation or sowing of suspicion in connection with certain officials. It is said that they have supposedly submitted something false or asked for it with knowledge aforethought. This is something which is being widely publicised by the newspapers— and I refer to the Sunday Times—and the hon. member for Yeoville is going along with it. However, that is not true. As a person who has been a practising accountant and auditor I want to state bluntly that I do not believe in fraud or theft at all. Indeed, I would have locked up my own father if he had been guilty of theft. Therefore, in my capacity as a member of the Select Committee I shall not permit any official or Minister, or even the hon. member for Yeoville, simply to get away with any statements they make. When there is fraud or theft, a man must face the music. When something is wrong, it must be rectified. However, when a man is not guilty I think it is the duty of every person—and here I include the hon. member for Yeoville—not to play the newspapers’ game and be guilty of character assassination. What has been done in this department over the years? If any of those people are guilty, then naturally we must deal with them.

Mr. Speaker …

No, Mr. Speaker, I do not have time now.

No, Mr. Speaker, I do not wish to put a question. I wish to point of order.

Order!

Mr. Speaker, on a point of order: Is that hon. member entitled to accuse another hon. member of character assassination?

Mr. Speaker, I said very clearly that the newspapers were doing it and that the hon. member should not go along with those newspapers.

Mr. Speaker, he said that I did it.

That hon. member plays along with the Sunday Times which has been guilty of character assassination over the years. He co-operated with them.

Mr. Speaker, I ask that hon. gentleman to sit down while you consider your ruling.

Order! What exactly did the hon. member mean when he spoke about newspapers and members?

Mr. Speaker, I put it that over the years the Sunday Times has definitely been out to commit character assassination and I say that that hon. member should not play along with the Sunday Times. If he understood thereby that I said that he also committed character assassination, then I say that I did not mean that.

Order! The hon. member may proceed but I am not going to permit further discussions of newspapers in this debate.

In conclusion, I just want to put the matter clearly once again. If there is anything wrong here, then action must be taken.

What is wrong must be set right. In the evidence, Mr. Van Rensburg said that the department imposed a great deal of pressure to have the work done as well and as promptly as possible. A great deal has been said about that in the report and I am not going to repeat it. Therefore, although rules have not been complied with, we must also look at the good work done, although we must see to it that matters relating to rules are rectified as the Select Committee requested. I have the fullest confidence in the work that the Select Committee is still to do. I have the fullest confidence in the Auditor-General. I have the fullest confidence in the Public Service Commission and I also have the fullest confidence in the Treasury. I see the amendment by the hon. member for Yeoville as merely an effort to place all those people under suspicion.

Mr. Speaker, I do not intend reacting to the hon. member who has just sat down because his speech was predominantly an attack on the hon. member for Yeoville and what he has said. I believe I should leave it to the Official Opposition to reply to what the hon. member for Sunnyside has said.

Mr. Speaker, I intended to state my case and start by saying that it is more in sorrow than in anger that I take part in this debate: Sorrow because the fact that these events have happened has, in our view, caused damage to the Public Service. The fact that they have happened and that they have received so much publicity has also, I believe, caused damage to our country and that does cause me sorrow, particularly as we know that one of the first things a communist country does when it seeks to create trouble for an adversary is to try to discredit the information that flows from the country that is its adversary to the outside world. I am afraid that what has happened here has made their job somewhat easier.

I said I was going to start in this way, but I must confess that the hon. member for Walmer has somewhat aroused my anger because he has made what I believe to be an unprovoked attack on a member of the public who is not able to defend himself here in the House.

I quoted the evidence.

I do not believe that the Government need so many members on their benches when they have the SAP in the House to defend them. I believe that Chris Van Rensburg was put under great pressure to write that letter of the 24th, and later on in my speech I am going to refer to this again. I believe that what the hon. member for Walmer has said in regard to Mr. Van Rensburg’s liquidity problem makes the case against the department even more shocking because, if Mr. Van Rensburg did in fact have a liquidity problem, it is even more scandalous that the department should have paid out the money, endangering the public’s money in this way, when there are State regulations prescribing the conditions under which one can make early payment, regulations which were in fact not observed. One wonders why the hon. member did not vote against the expenditure being authorized in the first place.

You did not even vote on the final report.

You abstained every time.

I did not abstain every time and I shall come to my reasons for my actions in due course. I hope the hon. member will be here to hear me. Perhaps the hon. member for Walmer had discussions with the former leader of his party before he came out with the speech he has made today.

You are talking nonsense!

The hon. member for Schweizer-Reneke mentioned unauthorized expenditure. He said that if we did not authorize this expenditure, we would have to recover this expenditure from somebody. The amount involved, viz. R320 000, is enormous. I do not think there is any doubt in any member’s mind that there were books delivered, but we believe that the investigation which, it is suggested, should be carried out, should in fact be carried out before the expenditure is authorized. We do not say that the money has to be recovered immediately and that the investigation can then be done. One can always authorize that expenditure at a later stage. The hon. member went on to say that the State had not lost any money, but in my view they have lost a lot of interest. From the date on which the first payment was made, viz. 14 June 1974, to the date on which the last book was delivered, which was, as the hon. member for Yeoville has said, in August 1976, more than two years had elapsed. I believe therefore that the State has suffered a loss in terms of the interest they could have made on that money had they invested it at a normal rate of interest.

I should like to congratulate the hon. member for Yeoville on what I believe to be an extremely well-reasoned speech. I should also like to associate myself with him in his congratulations to the chairman of the committee who did a very good job under very trying circumstances. [Interjections.] I hope I am not embarrassing him by my remarks. I would also like to extend my congratulations to the Auditor-General who, I believe, has done an extremely good job often under very difficult circumstances.

I want to go on to the amendment moved by the hon. member for Yeoville. I believe we could support this amendment but we have one or two little difficulties with it. We, in turn, will be moving an amendment ourselves somewhat later. The difficulties we have is that I do not really believe there is too much need for an investigation because there is a proven case, a case which has been proven in this document which is before the House today. A case has been proven which would lead to certain action being taken, but I wonder if such further action should be the appointment of a further investigationary committee. I wonder whether this should be the case because I believe the Auditor-General and his staff have already done a first-class job in investigating the situation. However, I will come to our recommendations in due course.

The second aspect that worries us is whether such report, whether it is undertaken by the Treasury or a commission of inquiry, will be tabled in this House. This is the House that has the ultimate responsibility and it is Parliament that has the responsibility over State funds. I would like to urge the hon. the Minister of the Interior or the hon. the Minister of Finance—I do not know who will carry the ultimate responsibility—that if there is, in fact, a report, from whatever source it comes, he should table it in this House so that we can see what has happened to our State funds.

I want to recap once more and quote extracts of evidence because I want to give this House the facts as I, and our party, see them as to what happened. First of all, the Secretary of this department was involved in this publication from the beginning to the end. Every letter that was brought in front of us as evidence bore the inscription at the top “Vir die aandag van Dr. E. M. Rhoodie” or “For attention Dr. E. M. Rhoodie”. He was accordingly personally involved from the beginning to the end. He states that Erudita was the company which had come to him with the idea for this book. Yet—and I quote from page 25 of the evidence—Dr. E. Rhoodie wrote to the Prime Minister on 12 June 1975 and he said amongst other things—

He stated that the department was instrumental in the conception of the book, Mr. Speaker. If this is the case, why did he get Erudita to handle the whole affair? He then accepts the quote of Erudita on 7 June 1974 and one of the things that he says in the letter is that two other quotes must be obtained for the printing of the book of which at least one should be in Europe and the other in the Republic of South Africa. Within seven days, on 14 June, he pays the first amount. In other words, in seven days the publisher would have had to obtain quotes from two alternative sources.

That is impossible.

I would say that this is extremely difficult, and it transpired later in the evidence—on page 83 in fact—that he knew there had been quotes before he ever asked for them. Why then did he state in his letter of acceptance that there had to be quotes when he already knew that these quotes had, in fact, been received? I would like to quote question 368 which was asked by the hon. member for Yeoville—

He therefore knew this. Further on in the evidence—on page 26 for those who wish to follow me—Dr. Rhoodie states that he has two quotes on the file. Dr. E. Rhoodie’s full reply is as follows—

Yet, I have in front of me a letter from Erudita Publications dated 2 March 1978. I quote—

In other words, in response to a telephone call from Dr. E. M. Rhoodie, Erudita had in fact to give him the information on the other quotes. The other quotes were apparently not on the file, because he had to get them from elsewhere. These quotes included Roner’s quote and many other quotes. The difference between the lowest quote and Roner’s quote was only 1,5% while the regulations state that South African firms must be given a preference of 10%. These things give rise to questions. On 14 June and on 9 December 1974 two amounts totalling R81 440 was paid out and that was done while the quote states that the money need only be paid within 30 days of delivery of the books. Why then was R81 440 paid out? There was no authorization for advance payments. I have already mentioned the fact that he had accepted the tender with no Tender Board approval. The financial standing of Erudita was never in fact checked by the department and, what is worse, there was no authority for foreign currency approval. In another of his uncalled for remarks at attempted defence, the Secretary of the department says the following on page 42 of the report—

In answer to a further question, i.e.—

Dr. Rhoodie answered—

Dr. Rhoodie says that he does not know whether he has such authority and yet he says that he spends R10 million a year in foreign currency. I find this unbelievable.

The next point I want to refer to, is that the Secretary himself personally authorized that the amount should be paid …

Mr. Speaker, may I ask the hon. member a question?

No, Sir, my time is very limited.

†We now get to page 189, which contains the first of the appendices. The photostat of this appendix is very feint, but nevertheless, Dr. Rhoodie signed the following—

The goods had, according to this, therefore been received in good condition and the Secretary signed the receipt himself. One would have thought that it would have been more normal for someone further down in the department to accept something of this nature. That is, however, not the case and the Secretary himself actually signed this personally. What is more, he signed it only on the authority of the letter of 24 March which he received from Van Rensburg, and which has subsequently been proved to be a false letter. This is bad enough, but one must bear in mind that the Secretary of the department had seen the letter of 3 March which came from the same source and in which Van Rensburg clearly stated that the books would only be ready to go to the printer after 31 March. We know that the Secretary had seen this letter, because it in fact carried remarks on it in his handwriting and was in fact initialled by him. This happened on 3 March and yet, on 24 March, he receives the other letter and pays out as a result of that letter.

On page 30 of the report he says the following in answer to a question and I shall read it—

How can he make a statement of this nature when, in the current report of the Department of Information, it is stated that there is an office of the department in Madrid? I have the following telex from his department—

Why could that man not have gone to see whether the books were there? The telex further says—

He could therefore have sent somebody from Lisbon as well. One must also take into account—this is a regrettable fact which one does not want to spell out, but it is the case— that there are three brothers involved in this affair. They are the Secretary, the Under Secretary and a third brother who acted as the editor-in-chief of the publication concerned. According to the letter of Mr. Van Rensburg of 7 June 1974—

The most important point that I wish to make is that I believe great pressure was brought to bear on Mr. Van Rensburg by the officials of the department and I wonder who put it in the head of these officials to make these approaches. I should like to quote a few pieces of evidence in this regard. On page 58 the Auditor-General, Mr. Barrie, in reply to question 254 stated—

On page 97 of the evidence we have this further statement by Dr. E. M. Rhoodie in reply to question 407—

On page 122 of the report Mr. Van Rensburg himself is giving evidence and in reply to question 520 said—

Mr. Speaker, I ask you, what greater pressure can a man be put under than this, where he is given the impression that the funds will not be available in the following year when he himself or his company will have to pay out those funds? I believe this is great pressure and I should like to repeat that Mr. Van Rensburg would never have written the letter of 3 March saying that the books would not be ready if it had been his intention to defraud the Government by subsequently writing the letter of 24 March. I believe this is the biggest point of evidence in Mr. Van Rensburg’s favour. He would have been incredibly stupid, if he had intended to say that these books were going to be ready by the end of the month, to have written that letter of 3 March.

I now wish to proceed with the next item. There is an old saying that behind every good man, there stands a woman. I think we could say in this House today that behind every Secretary of a department, there stands a Minister. In this instance that is particularly the case, because the hon. the Minister himself appointed the Secretary from outside the department.

There are many other questions one could ask, questions which arise from publicity in the Press, which I will not quote, Mr. Speaker, in view of your ruling. There have nevertheless been other questions raised in the Press. I only wish to quote one newspaper article, with your permission, relating to something which the hon. the Minister himself said some time ago. I am quoting from The Daily Dispatch of 20 April 1978. The article reads—

Order! The hon. member must raise questions which are relevant to this inquiry and to the evidence. Any other matters he can raise under the hon. the Minister’s Vote.

Mr. Speaker, I accept your ruling, but I believe the next section of the article is extremely relevant to the inquiry. I wish to start to quote it and, Mr. Speaker, you can rule me out of order if you feel it is not relevant. The article continues—

[Interjections.] I have quoted from The Daily Dispatch of 20 April 1978. [Interjections.]

Donald Woods!

Do not blame Donald Woods; it is also in Hansard.

Therefore I want to move a further amendment—

1. (1) this House is of the opinion that the Minister of Information is deserving of censure for his failure to exercise effective control over the activities of the Department; and
2. (2) this House declines to adopt the First Report of the Committee unless and until the Government undertakes to take the necessary steps to prevent a recurrence of the present unsatisfactory state of affairs.”.

Five years ago the hon. the Minister announced a new deal for a “revamped” department. The dead wood would be chopped out, there would be new techniques, unconventional methods and an undercover approach. Perhaps we did not then appreciate just how unconventional and how undercover these methods would be. We were promised a new image for South Africa. Millions of rand have been spent, but the annual report of the department shows that in the last year South Africa has had the worst publicity ever. What has become of these grandiose visions and the many times augmented millions of rand approved by Parliament?

Order! The hon. member’s arguments are becoming irrelevant. He may continue, but must confine himself to the report and the evidence.

Mr. Speaker, with respect, I am speaking to the reasons why we believe the hon. the Minister of Information is deserving of censure in terms of the amendment. I accept your ruling if that is your intention.

Yes, that is my intention. The hon. member must justify the censure part of his motion out of the evidence.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker, …

Order! The constitutional principle that a Minister is responsible for his department, of course, always remains.

It is apparent from this report that the rules and regulations have been flouted, rules which have been designed to protect public money and to give control to Parliament, which is the ultimate custodian. There are many rules, but this department has flouted these rules and regulations. However, as I have said before, I believe the passing of the buck ends with the hon. the Minister of Information. It is his department which has been so badly controlled. Damage to our Public Service and our country has resulted. I believe it is the duty of this Parliament and this Government, a duty they owe South Africa, to repair the damage as soon as possible. It is, I believe, our patriotic duty to see that what has caused harm to our country, is rooted out and not, in any shape or form, glossed over or whitewashed.

Business suspended at 12h45 and resumed at 14h15.

Afternoon Sitting

Mr. Speaker, Select Committees are appointed by this hon. House for the investigation and consideration of particular matters about which the House requires more information, advice or assistance. According to Kilpin, in his book on parliamentary procedure in South Africa (page 113), the primary function of a Select Committee is to collect and consider information and details which the whole House is unsuited to collect for itself owing to its numbers and its lack of time. Furthermore, according to Kilpin, a Select Committee is the servant of this hon. House and cannot go beyond its terms of reference. Those terms of reference can only be extended by the hon. House itself.

On 30 January this year this hon. House resolved—

On 3 February this year it was resolved that Part I of the report by the Auditor-General for 1976-’77 should be referred to this committee.

As far as the Information Vote is concerned, the Auditor-General only makes mention, in the report referred to of the unauthorized expenditure of R396 560, which must be dealt with in terms of Act No. 66 of 1975. Furthermore, the Auditor-General makes the following comment, which I quote for the information of the House. Under the heading “Information”, the following comment is made—

The Select Committee’s terms of reference were therefore confined, as far as that was concerned, to, firstly, the collecting of further information in respect of the alleged unauthorized expenditure and the quoted comment by the Auditor-General; secondly, the consideration of the alleged unauthorized expenditure and the quoted comment against the background and in the light of the further information; and, thirdly, the making of recommendations in respect of the alleged unauthorized expenditure and about matters on which the quoted comment by the Auditor-General has a bearing.

I stress that the terms of reference of the Select Committee were confined to that. In particular, it was not within the terms of reference of the committee to react to other matters, and particularly not to Press reports and other gossip.

On the one hand, the committee had to avoid any semblance of an impression that the conduct of the persons responsible was being condoned. On the other hand, the committee had to guard against the possibility of its deliberations degenerating into an inquisition. I want to state categorically that the committee has admirably succeeded in this, and I should like to pay tribute to the chairman of the committee for the manner in which he has succeeded in making the committee meet these two requirements.

The committee has carried out its terms of reference meticulously. The information which the committee has collected in connection with the alleged unauthorized expenditure and the Auditor-General’s quoted comment is contained in the committee’s second report to the House. In this second report, the committee confirms that it has carefully considered the available information, it comments on the events involved, and it makes certain recommendations in the light thereof. In conclusion, the committee recommends in its first report that Parliament should make available the amounts involved. I repeat that the Select Committee has carried out its terms of reference meticulously and with the greatest sense of responsibility. I therefore gladly endorse and support the recommendations and findings of the committee as contained in the two reports referred to.

But now hon. members of the Opposition raise all sorts of objections and misgivings concerning the recommendations of the Select Committee. Nobody need be surprised that the members of the Official Opposition do not agree with the findings and recommendations of the Select Committee. They, as well as the newspapers which support them, have for a considerable time been subjecting the Department of Information, i.e. the hon. the Minister, his officials and the activities of his department, to the most severe criticism in order to cast suspicion on the Department of Information. As appears from the record of the proceedings, the hon. member for Yeoville subjected officials of the department who gave evidence before the committee to a barrage of questions and to an intensive cross-examination.

It is just as well somebody did! [Interjections.]

It was a cross-examination which resulted, time and again, in emotional arguments in which the hon. member’s attitude was clearly revealed. One could not help gaining the impression—and I stress that I am not stating this as a fact, but as an unfortunate impression—that the Press, or whoever, had fed the hon. member for Yeoville a mass of information—correct or incorrect—on the basis of which he had already formed his opinion in advance, and that he was impatient to obtain justification for his preconceived standpoint.

The hon. member for Yeoville was also not prepared to endorse the reports by the Select Committee, but submitted a draft report of his own in terms of which, pending a full investigation into the affairs of the Department of Information, the alleged unauthorized expenditure should not be ratified. Earlier today, he moved an amendment along those lines in the House. In view of the fact that according to the evidence given, the publications in respect of which the payments concerned had been made were eventually received and were of a satisfactory, even outstanding standard and quality, and the State has indeed not suffered any damage—as other hon. members have repeatedly indicated earlier during the debate—there is absolutely no justification for withholding ratification of the payments in question.

That is wrong.

Then why did you not say so?

If I am given another half an hour, I will.

But that is not all. If Parliament were not to ratify these payments, it would inevitably mean that the amounts involved would have to be paid by the responsible officials themselves.

Hear, hear!

The hon. member says “Hear, hear,” but has he considered what the implications of that would be? The implications of that would be that the publications would then be the property of the officials concerned.

Yes, and I know what they can do with them, too.

Can he imagine what embarrassment that would be to the State, especially in view of the fact that the publications have been distributed throughout the world? Where is the State going to obtain the publications to return them to the officials who have paid for them?

You are now talking sheer nonsense.

That shows how superficially those hon. members approach the whole matter. [Interjections.]

The argument that ratification of the payments would prejudice the Government’s right to reclaim the money is simply not valid. After all, it is the payment of the amounts and not the receipt thereof which will be ratified. If it should then appear that somebody has perpetrated a fraud or has unlawfully enriched himself at the expense of the State, ratification of payment would therefore not detract in any way from the Government’s right to reclaim the amount which has thus been obtained in a fraudulent manner or whereby the receiver has been unlawfully enriched at the expense of the State. In the same way, ratification of the payments will not prevent criminal proceedings against the guilty persons. There is therefore no justification for not ratifying the payments at this stage, as recommended by the Select Committee.

There is, in any event, no need for a full investigation into the affairs of the Department of Information as proposed by the hon. member for Yeoville. That relevant Treasury instructions were not complied with and that the expenditure involved was unauthorized is not only absolutely clear from the evidence which was given but has also been unequivocally admitted by the Secretary for Information himself. A full investigation into the affairs of the department to ascertain or confirm these facts would therefore be totally superfluous. If, however, the purpose of the proposed full investigation has been and is to obtain grounds for a charge by the Attorney-General, as may be suspected on the grounds of the question put by the hon. member for Yeoville to the Auditor-General in the Select Committee, then the proposal was not within the terms of reference of the Select Committee, as also clearly appears from the reply by the Auditor-General to the question by the hon. member for Yeoville in the Select Committee.

There is, in any event, no indication of the presence of a criminal intent, mens rea, to prejudice the State, which is an essential requirement for a conviction on a charge of fraud. On the contrary, it may even be reasoned that the State has benefited by the payments concerned, or that that was at least the purpose in making them. There is indeed proof of negligence, even gross negligence, but negligence is not sufficient grounds for a charge of fraud.

After it had become clear to the Select Committee that the relevant Treasury instructions had not been complied with and that the payments involved were—and are—indeed unauthorized, it was the Committee’s function and task to inquire into and comment on the causes of such non-compliance and to make recommendations to prevent a recurrence thereof. In this connection, the following explanation in a letter dated 17 August 1977, from the Department of Information to the Treasury, is of great importance. I refer to paragraph 698, page 159, of the report of the Select Committee, and I quote—

This quotation confirms the inference drawn by the committee that there was a shortage of experienced administrative officers in the department, or that the available staff were not effectively utilized because administrative duties were assigned to, and carried out by, technical staff who were not au fait with financial instructions and regulations and who did not have the necessary administrative experience. Evidently, too, there was not the necessary control by the accounting officer, which could either have prevented the irregularities or have brought them to light at an earlier stage.

On the basis of these and other considerations, I maintain that the Select Committee was perfectly justified in making the comments contained in paragraph 12 of its second report, and the recommendation by the committee as set out in this paragraph was, in the circumstances, both realistic and correct, and therefore I gladly support it.

Mr. Speaker, I find it rather a pity that the hon. member for Mossel Bay thought fit to launch an attack on the hon. member for Yeoville, who gave such an excellent performance in the committee. The attack by the hon. member for Mossel Bay is something which the chairman of the committee, the hon. member for Schweizer-Reneke, conspicuously avoided this morning. Although the hon. member for Schweizer-Reneke is already deeply embarrassed because my hon. friend congratulated him this morning on his performance as chairman of the committee, I regret having to embarrass him even more, because I add my congratulations to those of my hon. friend.

†It is appropriate to begin today by referring to the First Report of the Auditor-General because it is that report which started the inquiry of which this debate forms a part. As everybody knows, that report cites five publications and one film, over a period of three years, in respect of which unauthorized payments were made. We are not dealing with an episode of carelessness, we are not dealing with a lapse from grace: we are dealing with a sorry tale of a department of State which repeatedly and, one may almost say, consistently ignored both the regulations under which it like all departments must operate and the contracts into which it had itself entered. Attempts have been made to suggest that these are merely technical offences and that the special role of the Department of Information in relation to our political life is such that they should be granted some kind of exemption from the rules. However, no one should deceive himself into accepting either of those arguments for a moment. As I shall try to show later, the Department of Information actually has greater reason than other departments to be scrupulous in all that it does.

As to the general principle of strict financial control, I should like to repeat two well known, but entirely true and relevant statements. Firstly, as my hon. friend said this morning, State funds in the hands of civil servants are in fact trust funds and must be dealt with more punctiliously than is necessary when one handles one’s own money. Secondly, because of the large amounts of money involved, State departments are always the target of unscrupulous people seeking to obtain advantage for themselves at the expense of the public and the regulations are there for the purpose of protecting the State from such people. If I may add a word from my own experience, it rarely seems to happen that, when an inspection or examination of the affairs of some organization discloses irregularities, the matter ends there. Once certain irregularities have been found, it is the rule rather than the exception that further investigation will show that lax administration and malpractice has become widespread or general. In the case we are looking at, a number of instances have been found extending over some years and it must be probable that there are more such instances to be found.

There is of course more to today’s inquiry that just unauthorized expenditure. I have begun by referring to the unauthorized expenditure because, if this were the only issue, a thorough inquiry would in my view already be quite essential. I want to come to the evidence regarding the manner in which the Secretary and his department have been conducting their business. For this purpose I wish to ask hon. members to concentrate for a while upon the question of the letters of 3 March and 24 March, to which reference has been made, and the payment made on 25 March 1975. On 3 March Mr. Van Rensburg, signing on behalf of Erudita Publications, wrote to the Department of Information, the letter being clearly marked “For the attention of Dr. E. M. Rhoodie, Secretary for Information”. That it was in fact received by the Secretary is shown by his initialled annotation upon it—

dated 12 March. In fact, this letter made it clear that there was no prospect whatever that the job could be completed and delivered by 31 March, the crucial date. One has only to quote the following two sentences: “The positives will be flown to Madrid on 23 March 1975” and “Plates will be made during the week ending 31 March 1975, after which printing will commence.” On 24 March Mr. Van Rensburg wrote again. It was quite a short letter, again addressed “for the personal attention of the Secretary”, and I shall quote it in full—

Then, on 25 March, the day following the date on the second letter, the Secretary for Information signed a receipt for 80 000 copies of the book. I quote from the evidence of the Auditor-General (page 24)—

So it is evident that the Secretary saw fit, in spite of the letter of 3 March, to sign for the receipt in good order of goods which not only he had not seen but which nobody could have seen on his behalf, simply because they did not exist. He then went further and caused payment for these non-existent goods to be made to the amount of R238 000. Naturally, the committee was concerned to find out whether there could be any reason for this extraordinary story. At first, as will be seen from his answer to question 87, the Secretary indicated that he had ordered payment on the strength of the letter of 24 March. At that stage the Auditor-General intervened to point out, as I have done here, that in terms of the letter of 3 March, the letter of 24 March had to be false. The Auditor-General added—this to me was the most astounding moment in the whole investigation—that he had evidence that the letter from which the Secretary had been quoting, that of 24 March, had been written by Mr. Van Rensburg at the request of officials of the Department of Information. The hon. member for Yeoville proceeded to question the Secretary on the flat contradiction between the two letters. He quoted, as I have done, the letter of 3 March and he then asked—

The Secretary’s initial answer was—

A little later the following exchange took place—

Dr. Rhoodie’s reply was—

I may mention in passing, Mr. Speaker, that the period involved was never a month, because Dr. Rhoodie’s initialling on the letter of 3 March is dated 12 March. The false letter to say that the work was already completed was received on the 24th. The period was therefore something less than 12 days.

A little later the hon. member for Yeoville asked the following question—

Dr. Rhoodie’s reply was—

Then there was a third version. The chairman of the committee put the following question to Dr. Rhoodie—

Dr. Rhoodie answered as follows—

So Mr. Speaker, on the Secretary’s evidence either he never saw the letter of March—but his handwriting appears upon it; so he did— or he thought it possible, in the light of the letter of the 3rd, that the job could nevertheless have been completed on the 24th, which is a patent absurdity. Without going into a lot of difficult matters, the fact is that the letter of the 3rd states that printing would not start until after the 31 March. In the third place, the possibility is that the department, in the person of Dr. Denys Rhoodie, did not ask for the letter of the 24th, but merely urged Mr. Van Rensburg to hurry up and to complete the job. This is not only contradicted in the evidence, to which I am coming, but it obviously would have been an exercise in futility because there was no way in which that job could have been completed during that month. It is clear that there was a letter of 3 March, also that there was a contrary letter of 24 March, and that the latter letter was false is beyond any doubt. The question that remains is whether the false letter was not written on the suggestion of the department.

*First I want to quote the evidence of Mr. J. A. van den Berge, the Assistant Chief Auditor in the department of the Auditor-General. The following question was put to him by Mr. G. J. Kotzé (question No. 434)—

Mr. Van den Berge replied—

That is how he got the letter, Mr. Speaker—

These are the notes which Mr. Van Rensburg made on the back of that letter when the letter was returned to him by the officials of the department—

What department invests its money?

That is, however, not the major point I want to make. The point I want to make is that on top of the remarkable story of the false letter of 24 March, elicited from Mr. Van Rensburg by Dr. D. O. Rhoodie in the presence of Mr. Braam Fourie, and on top of the totally unauthorized payments of roughly R¼ million made long before the goods were delivered, we now find that, during what he described as a couple of months, the Secretary took no action to instruct the publisher to deliver the books. It seems clear that all this was done in order to simply evade the Treasury regulations, to get the money into Mr. Van Rensburg’s hands and into the hands of the Spanish printer, by hook or by crook. On the face of it, the Secretary and the department behaved in a thoroughly improper way in order to achieve this and nothing short of a full public inquiry is likely to clear these matters up satisfactorily.

*In connection with the false letter, I request hon. members to pay attention to question 310 and the answer to it. I am going to quote it in a slightly abbreviated form. I asked the following question—

Dr. Rhoodie’s reply was—

From this it is clear, therefore, that the Secretary and the department were not at all shocked or indignant about the false letter; on the contrary, they continued to have the most friendly relations with Mr. Van Rensburg.

I suggest that this should be seen as a further indication that the false letter must have been written in terms of some agreement or other between the department and the publisher. I am making this statement, because if it was a case of Mr. Van Rensburg having deceived the innocent department, can anyone really believe that after this incident they would have continued to co-operate with him on such a friendly footing as they have been doing?

†I want to refer quite briefly to another important matter concerning this inquiry and the Department of Information. If I may, I shall do so with reference to Question 754 of the evidence and the reply given thereto. I asked the Secretary a perfectly simple question. Essentially I asked him why his department thought it unnecessary to get Treasury approval for an advance payment in the case of the publication Health and Healing, but had thought it necessary in the case of the publication This is the Transkei. That was the whole of the question. To my surprise, the Secretary proceeded in his reply to read into the record, as it stands in the report before us, a very long letter from the Department of Information to Treasury, dated 4 August 1975, and setting forth all the things which were proposed to be done in connection with the Transkei independence. It includes the following passage (page 177)—

*Just imagine, the Secretary is giving evidence before a committee in March 1978, and quite voluntarily tells such things to the whole world. Of course he proceeded to the contentious part of his evidence, where he tells us what he intends doing in this regard.

Order! I have already ruled this morning that I cannot allow a discussion of that letter, because the matters raised in it have no bearing on the report of the Auditor-General or on the inquiry of the Committee. It does have a bearing on the policy of the Department of Information and its actions in regard to other matters. The hon. member can address me on a point of order, but that has been my ruling so far, and I stand by it.

Mr. Speaker, I am in fact requesting permission to address you on a point of order. With the greatest respect, is it not true that anything which forms part of the printed report before us is relevant and can be discussed in this debate?

Order! The letter to which the hon. member is referring has no bearing on the inquiry, and if I allowed a discussion of the contents of that letter, I should have to allow a discussion, for example, of the independence of Transkei, the question of publicity for the independence of Transkei and the methods employed in achieving those ends, and none of these things formed the subject of the inquiry. For that reason I am not allowing any discussion of this letter.

Mr. Speaker, obviously I accept your ruling with the necessary respect.

I want to come now to the last argument which I wish to raise, viz. that where we are faced with unauthorized expenditure and irregular actions, it is necessary that we remind ourselves of the objective of the Department of Information, the duty of the department to South Africa and the importance of these things in the light thereof. Anybody who has, for example, taken a look at the latest report of the Department of Information, knows that the department is in fact a propaganda organization. Whether it is right that we should have such an organization, Mr. Speaker, I do not know and, as you will be quick to point out to me, it is not relevant in this debate; but if there is going to be a department for this purpose, let us then for heaven’s sake accept the fact that in such matters credibility is of the utmost importance. If the people who compile and distribute the propaganda create the impression that their actions are in any way undisciplined, that they use improper methods, are less than absolutely scrupulous in complying with the regulations and in handling the money, one can be sure that the major part of the money allocated to them will be wasted, for nobody is going to believe what they say.

The Auditor-General, acting on behalf of this House for the specific purpose of ensuring that the executive always acts within the framework of the decisions of this House—that is its function as I understand it—has discovered certain alarming facts and practices. A Select Committee has gone into the matter and as a result of its inquiry, even more disquieting things have come to light. As I have said, it is very likely that there is even more which has not come to light. With the greatest respect to the Treasury and the Public Service Commission, I should like to say that they also form part of that same executive whose actions the Auditor-General has to test on behalf of Parliament. If we want to create any possibility of restoring people’s confidence in the competence or the standards of conduct of the Department of Information after this, nothing less than a full public investigation will serve the country’s true interests.

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member for Parktown objected to the criticism which the hon. member for Mossel Bay directed at the hon. member for Yeoville at the beginning of his speech. I am rather surprised that the hon. member for Parktown interceded on behalf of the hon. member for Yeoville to such an extent. I did not know that there was such an intimate friendship between them. The hon. member also gave a review of events and of the content of this report, which has been discussed at great length in this House and in the Press.

I do not want to detract from the contribution which the hon. member for Yeoville made in this investigation, but we cannot ignore the fact that in his attempt to get into the limelight, he dominated the cross-examination in this inquiry to a large extent. Actually, I think the chairman treated him very fairly. However, we must also take into consideration the fact that most of the questions asked by the hon. member, were not really relevant.

I hope to reply during the course of my speech to a few matters raised by the hon. member for Parktown.

I think it is essential for me to dwell briefly on the functions of the Select Committee— the hon. member for Mossel Bay also emphasized this—because I think that this is an important aspect which we cannot overlook. In doing so I do not want to detract from the recommendations of the Select Committee on Public Accounts, because I consider them to be correct, and in the public interest. In fact, it is the function of a Select Committee to protect the interests of the public and to see to it that State funds are used in the best interests of the country. The Select Committee on Public Accounts also has another extremely important function to fulfil, viz. to ensure that the money which is voted by Parliament, is spent for the purpose for which it was intended. Assisted by the report of the Auditor-General, the Select Committee is the most important mechanism for inspecting irregularities and reporting to this Parliament, which is in fact what was done here. It has always been a special privilege for me to serve on this committee, because it affords a member of Parliament the opportunity of fulfilling himself in the sense that he can fulfil his function as an MP in a far more effective way by ensuring that irregularities do not take place and that justice prevails in the community. However, we are fortunate here in South Africa because we have one of the best Public Service systems in the world. Transgressions of Public Service regulations and the Public Service Commission code, and of Treasury directives, by Government departments, do in fact occur periodically. Usually they are of a technical nature. However, we have a particularly large Public Service and in the light of the tremendous scope of financial regulations, unauthorized expenditure does sometimes occur. I think—if one looks at the tremendous number of these Public Service regulations—it is really an achievement to apply them to the letter, although I do not want to detract from the fact that it is essential that these regulations be carried out for the protection of the public.

The NP Government also has an exceptional achievement to its credit over the past 30 years, viz. that whereas we accept that we are dealing with fallible people, there has never been an incident or an irregularity in a Government department in the past which this Government was not prepared to expose to the bone. There are several examples of this in history. In the past, this Government has acted fearlessly as regards this important standpoint. In all the years I have served on the Select Committee on Public Accounts, and have been involved in politics, I do not know of any “cover-up” as far as this Government is concerned, and I think the public of South Africa is aware of this too.

However, before we take a look at the details of this report, it is nevertheless necessary for us to take a look at the background against which this report was published and put matters into the correct perspective. For several years now, an attempt has been made, particularly by the Press and the Opposition, to create a climate of suspicion, especially as regards the Department of Information and its relations with the Department of Foreign Affairs. It is a climate which has been built up over the years, and every now and then we see some cock and bull story in the newspapers. Since the report of the Auditor-General was published, there has hardly been a newspaper that has not published some report about this matter. Emotion was built up as a background to this inquiry, emotion which exceeded all limits of reasonableness. By the time we began to investigate this matter, the Secretary for Information had already been judged in terms of the background which had been created. Dr. Rhoodie’s private affairs were bandied around as if they were public property, as if they were relevant, for the sole purpose of sowing further suspicion and insinuating that he was a rascal. If this is a new facet of the pattern of life in South Africa, I want to reject it with the contempt it deserves, because it is a phenomenon which has blown over here from the USA.

Mr. Speaker, on a point of order: Is the hon. member not doing precisely what you have asked hon. members not to do? [Interjections.]

Order! I allowed the hon. member to refer to the surrounding atmosphere of emotion which has built up in regard to the matter, and I again allowed him to refer to the fact that the matter was reported in the newspapers, but I definitely cannot allow him to elaborate on the matter. The hon. member must rather come back to the report.

Mr. Speaker, if I have to come back to today’s debate, I want to bring to the attention of the House the fact that in the past not a single word has been said by hon. members of the Opposition about unauthorized expenditure. Nor was a single word uttered about the unauthorized expenditure of other Government departments. In the nature of the matter, these are things which happen, and which are of a technical nature.

We were losing all objectivity and perspective. However, I think that when we look at the report, we will soon realize that unfortunately this inquiry was held in the midst of emotional aggression built up by factors pertaining to the background which I have already sketched. As an example of this, I want to refer to a reply which Dr. Rhoodie gave to a question by the Chairman. In his reply to question 88—on page 35 of the report—Dr. Rhoodie says, inter alia—

The following question—question 89—was put to Dr. Rhoodie by the hon. member for Yeoville, as follows—

However, just before that, the Secretary of Information had said he conceded that the letter did not contain the truth. When the Secretary of Information objected to this question by the hon. member for Yeoville, however, the hon. member asked him another question. This is question 90, in which the hon. member says, inter alia, the following—

It is this aggressive and emotional background, too, against which we must consider this report.

I agree entirely with the hon. member for Mossel Bay when he says that one gained the impression that some hon. members of the Opposition attended the proceedings of the committee with a previously conceived standpoint from which they did not wish to deviate. I was a district surgeon for years. I attended many court cases. However, I have yet to attend a cross examination where there was such a climate of agression.

One may perhaps be able to excuse it when one judges it in the light of the background against which it took place. However, I hope that prejudice did not effect the findings which the Select Committee presented to the House in the report under discussion. Since the inquiry took place against an emotional background, it was extremely difficult for the committee—and I pray tribute to the chairman for having kept his head—to present a report in the best interests of the public. I should also like to point out that there are a few facts which demand the attention of the House. The first is that the procedures followed by the Department of Information in this specific case, are procedures which have been followed for the past 14 or 15 years, without a single inquiry by the Auditor-General. Therefore, is it not reasonable to accept that the Secretary of Information, since he had of course been following these procedures for years, could reasonably have believed that it was entirely in order to do this in this way? This is not a case of an official who has grown up in the Public Service, but of an official who, due to his special qualifications, was called in to carry out a special task. Nor must we fail to take into account the fact that the technical responsibilities of the department are normally delegated to a subordinate official and are not attended to by the Accounting Officer in person. However, I do not want to allege there by that the Secretary of a department is not responsible. We must nevertheless take a look at how things work in practice.

I also want to bring to the attention of the House that there is no evidence that the State lost money due to the abnormal procedures which were followed. Although I do not want to allege that regulations should not be complied with, I want to point out that the timeous payment by the department actually entailed a saving of at least 17%, if one takes into consideration the fact that the rand was devalued by 17% later in that year.

I want to dwell on this briefly because it has been suggested by the Opposition that the State suffered a loss of interest. It was not by chance that the devaluation aspect entered into the matter. On page 22 of the report of the Select Committee we note that the Secretary provided in paragraph (iv)(a) of the agreement for the possibility of a devaluation. Dr. Rhoodie had therefore already foreseen at that stage that there might be a devaluation of the rand. He was therefore thoroughly prepared for such a possibility. It is true that Mr. Pretorius replied evasively when I questioned him as to the possibility of a devaluation when he gave evidence before the Select Committee, but I must point out that I myself was abroad in 1974. At that time there was already a strong possibility that there would be a devaluation. When the hon. the Minister of Finance announced the devaluation in September 1975, he mentioned the fact that one of the important reasons why we had to devalue, was the continuing speculation against the rand which took place the previous year.

Although the regulations were not scrupulously complied with, we must not see the transaction as one which was tendered for. Reasons have repeatedly been advanced as to why it must be seen as a transaction which was tendered for, but I think that we should rather see it as a transaction where the department made a purchase from funds which had already been voted by Parliament.

Are you defending the case now?

I am in fact merely stating the bald facts of the matter. I am stating facts which cannot be ignored.

I should like to point out that the fact that the books were printed at low cost in Spain and could be distributed throughout the world more easily from there, meant a further saving of 30%. Therefore, the interest argument raised by hon. members of the Opposition is irrelevant.

However, I readily concede that the interests of the State have not been secured sufficiently in the light of the financial regulations and other directives. However, as far as this point is concerned too, we must not lose sight of the fact that the same firm has handled various publications for the Department of Information in the past and that it handled them satisfactorily. It was also placed on record as evidence in the report of the Select Committee that the Secretary of Information said that there were still other works which had not yet been completed, but were already in an advanced stage, and if they had not received the books, they would have been able to withhold payment for the other works. Therefore, there was in fact security for the interests of the State.

Furthermore, we must take note of the fact that Stepping into the Future is a work of such wide scope that it could not reasonably be expected that it be completed without advance payments by the department. I am mentioning this in the light of other facts which have already been mentioned this afternoon. It would have been a pity if South Africa had lost the benefit of such an excellent publication merely because the contract had to be carried out so completely to the letter that Erudita Publications would have been physically and financially incapable of publishing the book. I think the hon. member for Walmer has already referred to this specific point in his speech. However, the Secretary of Information pointed out that at the time of the payments, the greater portion of the work had already been dealt with, and I think this is an important point which we must take into consideration. It therefore seems as if lack of security for the State was not such a big factor in this case, although security for the State is usually an important factor, for instance in contracts etc. which are concluded by Government departments.

Dr. Rhoodie did not try to hide anything. He admits that the expenditure is unauthorized in the strict sense of the word, just as many other heads of Public Service have admitted that regulations have not been strictly complied with in the past. It is this very system that we wish to rectify by means of this report. He admits that he authorized the payment in March 1975 on the basis of false information which was presented to him. However, he had already taken disciplinary steps against subordinate officials and had already asked the Public Service Commission itself to investigate. I just ask myself what the reason is for the hysteria which preceded this investigation. There must be more than the mere fact that it is essential to protect public interest.

Since this report appeared, I have discussed its contents with various lawyers, people who have checked it carefully. General opinion is that there is nothing in the evidence which could lead to a finding of guilty in an ordinary court, in spite of one of the most precise and penetrating cross-examinations we have ever seen.

I would be the last person to try and protect people who are in fact guilty, but I think it is important for this House to be fair too.

Mr. Speaker, as the first non-member of the Select Committee to speak in this debate, I am sure you will allow me a little latitude.

Oh, no!

I am grateful anyway for your prompt refusal. I shall be motivating the amendment which our party moved and which has been ruled to be in order, an amendment stating that the hon. the Minister of Information is deserving of censure for his failure to exercise effective control over the activities of the department, and I shall try to persuade the House, in the course of my speech, that that is indeed the true situation.

*I have to be very honest and say that I get the impression that those hon. members opposite who have spoken up to now have actually been handing out medals to members of this department, to people who have gone out of their way to evade the guidelines and regulations of the Treasury. It seems to me that the whole Public Service should abide by these guidelines and regulations, but the members of this department went out of their way to evade those guidelines. It seems to me that the hon. member for Newcastle is now trying to explain everything away. I simply cannot understand how he can do that.

One can see that you did not sit on that committee.

I want to say to hon. members opposite that I think that this brotherly love and good fellowship of theirs should now be stopped. They have taken it far enough in this debate.

†Sir, hon. members have been very kind to my friend, the hon. member for Schweizer-Reneke. They have said nice things about him. I have had a great deal of experience of that hon. member from another commission and I am very pleased to see that he is carrying on with the good work—traditions are established in that way. We are very happy to see that he is doing so well. [Interjections.] I hope I am not getting the hon. member into trouble, because that is not my intention.

The burden of our complaint is that we believe that the hon. the Minister has failed to control the affairs of his department. Let me say, as the hon. members for Yeoville and East London North have done before me, that it is not a matter of pleasure for us to come before the House with a matter like this. It is a matter of the gravest moment and a matter of sadness that in this particular stage of our history we should have to debate a matter of this nature. However, it is the manifest duty of people in the situation in which we find ourselves to bring these matters to the attention of the public and to motivate them. To bring the matter to a head, I wish to read very briefly a quotation from Edmund Burke, who lived nearly 200 years ago. He is one of the greatest members of Parliament in all history and he had cause to put on record his “thoughts on the Cause of the Present Discontents”, which were the riots and other events that took place in London at the time. Edmund Burke said—

That is what we are about this afternoon, viz. to compose the minds of the subjects and to conciliate their affections. I believe the hon. the Minister faces a situation today where the minds of the subjects and the private people outside are deeply concerned because the department the hon. the Minister is controlling is the far-ranging first line of defence of South Africa and the entire report before us deals with activities that are undertaken by that department with that purpose in view. Quite obviously, this is a department which has to go into the areas of shadow and darkness in many instances to achieve some of the things they have got to achieve.

The hon. the Minister appointed the present Secretary for that department. Let me say that, although I do not know the Secretary personally, he strikes me as being a man of initiative and verve, and a man of unusual activity. But, Sir, what an unusual man to appoint to a prominent Civil Service post! Surely it is incumbent upon the hon. the Minister to control in the utmost detail the activity of a person whom the Minister himself took away from another activity and appointed to control a department like this. Let me say that the hon. the Minister’s own nature and temperament is such that he is one of those unusual people who is liable to take unusual and challenging actions. I give him credit for that. He is capable of doing that— he may well lead us to disaster, but that is a thing we can debate on another occasion. It was however the Minister’s duty to ensure that the department functioned either within the confines of the Civil Service or outside of it. Mr. Speaker, I do not know what your ruling will be, but there is a Press report in which the Secretary of the department says that his department has to act within the massive amount of bureaucratic measures to which the department is being subjected and that that has a restraining effect on the department as it often has to act speedily and in unforeseen circumstances. This department has been operating under the present Secretary for more than just a few years and the hon. the Minister has known that this has been going on. If it is indeed so that the department is inhibited in the work it has to carry out with the approval of the Minister and that it cannot act within the confines of the machinery of the Civil Service, he, when he was Minister of the Interior was able to clear away those things so as to ensure that the department can function. I believe that what he actually did was to do a great disservice to South Africa, for the reasons advanced by the hon. member for East London North. Sir, the country is in a state of siege, and what is more important than anything else—the hon. member for Parktown also mentioned it—is that the weapons with which we fight the battle have to be above suspicion. This department, like Ceasar’s wife, has to be above suspicion, and it must not be thought that the department is being administered by a self-appointed Caesar who acts without the confines of the rules and regulations which are laid down and to which every other member of the Civil Service is subject and according to which they have to act. I think the hon. the Minister should have known that these rules and regulations are there for the protection of the public, of the department, of the Minister and of the country. I believe the hon. the Minister has strayed from the path in that he has not taken the action to make sure that these regulations were observed. As hon. members have mentioned, a letter was received on 25 March where money was paid out and which, after reading the report as an ordinary person trying to think about these things, I cannot accept it. I cannot accept that it was in the mind of the Secretary of the department that the books had been delivered and that they were then on charge to his department. I cannot believe it. I simply cannot see how it could be. That is what is bringing the department into discredit. This is our problem, because now everything the department does is blown up and played with in the newspapers. In fact, every activity of the department is affected, thus causing the credibility of the department and of the hon. the Minister to be questioned.

Hon. members on the other side can try to explain it away or they can disregard it, but what they cannot get away from—for it is the responsibility of the hon. the Minister—is the attitude towards the control by Parliament on the part of the officials of this department. The hon. member for Newcastle says it is only a small amount, that it is not a major factor nor is it a great thing that has happened. The hon. member for Walmer pointed that the department had inexperienced administrative staff. However, how does one explain that grown-up men, experienced people …

We have admitted that.

You have admitted it, but I am now saying to the hon. the Minister that within the confines of his duties he should have had control over his department so that things like this could not have happened. I believe he has failed utterly to exercise the control that I think he should have exercised.

Have you not read the report?

I have read the report in the utmost and finest detail while that hon. member only asked a few questions and has not yet taken part in this debate.

You do not know what you are talking about.

How can that hon. member say that I do not know what I am talking about when I have indeed read the report in the greatest detail? That is the reason why I make the case against the hon. the Minister, because the hon. the Minister should have been aware of what was going on and he should have been in control. The reason why this report is before the House is because members of the department failed to observe regulations which are laid down for all departments, and for every single civil servant. Yet that hon. member supports him. Those measures are there to protect the public and the department, the officials themselves and the hon. the Minister. [Interjections.] What is that hon. member shaking his head for?

Read the report.

I do not know what the hon. member’s problem is. Perhaps one day he can write me a letter or send me a telegram and tell me what he is worrying about. I cannot understand what he is talking about now. [Interjections.]

I have a further problem and in this regard I want to address myself to the hon. the Minister.

You always have problems.

That is right. With a Government like this everybody always has problems. The hon. the Minister knows there is still another matter about which investigations are going on in the Select Committee. There are other matters which are still being investigated and a report thereon will be tabled in this House in due course. It will, however, not be tabled in time for the discussion of the hon. the Minister’s Vote in a couple of weeks’ time.

You cannot refer to that now.

I am making an appeal to the hon. the Minister because I want to know from him if, when that matter is tabled, he will ensure that the matter comes before the House. There will be a report and it will appear on the Order Paper, but I know my hon. friend over there, the Chief Whip, well enough to know what will happen to the report. It will appear at the bottom of the Order Paper until it eventually drops off the Order Paper. [Interjections.]

Order! That is another matter.

Mr. Speaker, I mention this because I wish to ask the hon. the Minister whether he will ensure that when an investigation of this sort is going on, an investigation which covers the whole of his department as it is carried out by the Select Committee on the basis of the Report of the Auditor-General it will be placed before the House. I submit that it is not really another matter. It is a matter which is still before the Select Committee and will form part of the …

Order! When I ruled that to be another matter I was referring to the availability of time to debate it in this House, the point the hon. member was raising.

I am merely asking the hon. the Minister to make sure, I would like an assurance from him, in order to protect himself and the department, that this matter would be debated in this House in the course of this session. Would the hon. the Minister accede to that? Will the hon. the Minister do so? [Interjections.]

It can be discussed during the Third Reading of the Appropriation Bill. Surely the hon. member knows that.

The problem is that it will pre-empt the whole of that discussion, because it is another matter altogether. I believe the hon. the Minister owes it to this House to give us the assurance now that when these matters come before the House, they would be considered as a whole. The whole of the hon. the Minister’s department, its credibility, is involved. A weapon in his hand and in the hand of South Africa has been tarnished, and the hon. the Minister himself will have to retemper and resharpen that weapon, and he faces the utmost difficulty in doing so. Unless this House is going to be satisfied that the whole matter is being cleared up after having debated the whole matter, I think the hon. the Minister will have failed to achieve the intention of the investigation ordered by this hon. House, i.e. to reveal whatever may have been going on in the department. Unauthorized expenditure is now being authorized and there are other matters within the purview of Parliament which are now before the Select Committee and which can be debated here and which we can discuss. I think the hon. the Minister owes it to this House to give us an assurance that a further matter like that will be debated here. Failing such an assurance from the hon. the Minister, I believe we are entitled to ask that the debates which we are now engaged in be held over until such time as the other report is tabled. When one deals with a matter like this, it is absolutely essential that the responsibilities of the hon. the Minister should be dealt with in the course of one debate and that everything else which was before the Select Committee should for that purpose come before the House. I therefore wish to move—

I do so in order to allow any further reports by the Select Committee dealing with the Department of Information to be tabled in this House so that all the reports may be discussed in the course of one debate.

Order! I am unable to accept the hon. member’s motion as I think it infringes on the business of this House. At the instance of both sides of this House, the First Report of the Select Committee was expedited and submitted to this House so that by agreement it may be discussed, adopted or rejected here today, and to postpone the debate on the Report after all that has been done, would be to disregard the wishes of this House. Moreover, the Report deals not only with unauthorized expenditure of the Department of Information, but also with that of the Departments of Public Works, Water Affairs and Forestry. If the Report is adopted, a special financial measure has to be passed this session to authorize this expenditure. Therefore I am unable to accept the hon. member’s motion. The discussion may proceed.

Mr. Speaker, may I speak on the motion for adjournment of the debate?

Order! I shall allow only one or two members to do so, but I shall not allow a lengthy discussion. The hon. member for Yeoville may address me.

Mr. Speaker, as far as we in these benches are concerned, we are anxious that this debate should be continued and that we should vote on the motion before the House. I think the issue is whether time is going to be given, during this session, to debate further reports that might be presented by the committee …

Order! That matter is not before me or before the House today. I have given my ruling that I cannot accept the motion that this debate be now adjourned and I confirm it.

Mr. Speaker, may I with respect ask …

Order! I have given my ruling.

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member for Mooi River is very concerned about the question of whether the Government will see that justice is done. I wish to tell him that the annals of the Government affirm that for the past 30 years they have always seen that justice was done and have always conducted thorough investigations into everything which had to be investigated.

Mr. Speaker, before I put my case, I should like, with respect, to bring another issue to your attention. Earlier this afternoon the hon. member for Groote Schuur interjected while the hon. member for Mossel Bay was speaking about the many questions put by the hon. member for Yeoville and said: “Just as well somebody did.” I want to allege that he was insinuating that the members of the Select Committee were covering up, and that members on the Government side had not asked questions with the aim of getting at the truth, but that they were acting in a protective manner. I submit that this is a reflection on the integrity of the Government members of the Select Committee.

I do not wish to spend much time on the hon. member for Yeoville, but in his speech he used a number of terms which have to be looked at. With reference to the Department of Information and the Secretary of Information, he said: “They want to abolish the rules.” He also spoke of “acts of defiance” and said that “the authority of the State was being challenged”. I shall address myself to the hon. member in this regard in a moment, but I first wish to refer to the hon. member’s insinuation that the Secretary for Information is ignoring the hon. the Minister. The hon. member quoted certain paragraphs on page 41 of the report. He did not, however, read everything. He did not read paragraph 143. After the hon. member for Yeoville had put a number of questions, and Dr. Rhoodie had answered in paragraphs 141 and 142 that he had not discussed that specific question with the hon. the Minister, the hon. member for Yeoville asked—

Dr. Rhoodie then replied as follows—

I submit that the hon. member for Yeoville did not furnish the full reply.

I also wish to refer to questions 63 to 66 of the report. I shall now count my words and tell the hon. member for Yeoville that when I listened to those questions, I gained the impression—and I do not say that the hon. member for Yeoville did this, but I gained this impression—that he wished to insinuate that the Department of Information had become slack in respect of compliance with Treasury regulations, merely because the department was aware of the fact that Audit only tests a small percentage, 3% to 10% per year. I do not wish to put words in the hon. member’s mouth, but I think it is correct to infer that the hon. member insinuated that that department started doing things as if nothing would happen, because Audit does only 3% to 10% testing per year per department. If I am wrong, the hon. member must correct me.

The Select Committee came to a conclusion. It found an answer to its terms of reference and made a recommendation. I do not want to call the report by the Auditor-General or the finding of the Select Committee into question this afternoon; on the contrary, I think the Auditor-General and the Select Committee, of which I am a member, were right when they said that there had been contraventions. Where I am going to devote the rest of my speech to the Secretary to the department, I am not concerned with the person, but with the post. On 7 July 1974 the Secretary to the department wrote a letter to Erudita Publications. This publishing firm approached the Secretary to establish whether he was interested in obtaining copies of a certain publication for distribution by his department. He said: “I want to solicit your support.” He asked the support of the department to purchase certain books which Erudita Publications wanted to publish.

What I find commendable, is that the written reply by the Secretary is typical of a loyal, efficient official. The letter is printed on page 23 of the report and you will allow me, Mr. Speaker, to quote a part of it. I am only quoting the last paragraph of the letter, for I find it typical of the responsibilities entailed by this office. One of the conditions is—

This is important—

He furthermore writes to this firm—

He acted correctly according to Public Service conditions, as far as that matter is concerned. Therefore I wish to tell the hon. member for Yeoville that we should not criticize the man, but we should see whether he discharges his duties correctly. I think he acted in an efficient and loyal manner. I did not gain the impression that the Secretary of the department was arrogant in this respect and was determined to ignore his superiors. We accept that there were technical contraventions. We do not differ with anyone on that score. The greatest sin, to my mind, was that Public Service regulations were contravened in the sense that no approval was obtained from the Treasury for overspending. Treasury instruction 150(i), as well as financial regulations 26, 27, which lapsed on 31 March 1976, and 9(1)(i), which took effect on 1 April 1976, empower the Treasury, should circumstances require this and should it be urgently necessary, to grant approval to a department to exceed its allowed expenditure. The question now occurs to me—we tried to establish this in the Select Committee—whether the regulations were violated as a result of wilfulness, arrogance, or contempt of the Treasury and Parliament. Did this action take place because the Secretary or his department wanted to wrong the State? Was this done because the Secretary or his department wanted to perpetrate corruption? The answer is “no”, otherwise the Select Committee would not have recommended that that overspending be ratified. For that reason I think we have loyal and honourable people at the head of this department.

My second question is whether these regulations were violated through ignorance. Quite a few hon. members have referred to this. There was a measure of ignorance. I can quote from several pages of the report to indicate that there was ignorance, because— and the Secretary does not deny this—editors and journalists had to do administrative work for which they were not really trained. The Auditor-General as well as the Secretary refer to this aspect in paragraph 706, on page 162, of the report. It is true that some of the people were not fully acquainted with the administrative procedure. Therefore they made mistakes. It would be wrong of me to say that ignorance was the only reason for incorrect procedures and actions. Ignorance cannot be excused. The argument which I wish to advance is that the action of the Secretary for Information could—I do not say it should— have taken place on the analogy of the practice and procedure of the previous 15 years.

I wish to quote only two further passages from the report. On page 28, question 80, Dr. Rhoodie replied to a question put to him by the chairman—

What happened here was that the department acted on the analogy of what had happened in the past. In the same reply, Mr. Rhoodie said further—

He has been Secretary merely for five years.

By quoting those paragraphs, I am not protecting anyone. I only wish to point out that a certain procedure had been followed for many years and that the department was under the impression that it could continue in this way.

If you believe that, you will believe anything.

I have no reason to doubt the truth of what I have quoted here from the evidence given by the Secretary for Information before the Select Committee. If the hon. member for Groote Schuur doubts the truth of what the Secretary for Information said, he must say so now.

Why are you, as member of the Select Committee, then asking for an investigation?

Much is being asked and said, but would it have been possible to print and distribute these 80 000 books within three weeks? Would they have been able to conclude this within three weeks? The Secretary said repeatedly in reply to questions that to his mind, it was technically possible. Then, however, he made inquiries with two large firms. In reply to a question in this regard by the chairman, Dr. Rhoodie replied on page 89, question 394, as follows—

As I see it, the Secretary of Information firmly believed this when he said that the books would be ready by 3 March, and when he said, in a letter of 24 March, that the books were ready, he really believed that they were ready. That is why he signed the authorization for payment to be made.

The fact is, as the Secretary admitted, that these were technical contraventions. The mere fact that when these matters were brought to his attention—that reform was necessary in his department—he immediately issued an order in this regard, indicates to me that we should accept his bona fides as a person and should not try to criticize him and run him down.

Mr. Speaker, we approach this debate with a feeling of regret at the complications which made this discussion necessary. We do not approach this matter without sympathy for the officials involved in it, either. We are not dealing here with matters over which anyone should rejoice. Therefore I immediately want to rectify one or two allegations which were made here.

The hon. member for Schweizer-Reneke said in his speech that I had demanded that a judicial inquiry should be instituted with regard to this matter.

I admitted afterwards that I was wrong.

That is right. However, I just want to mention that the hon. member subsequently sent me a note in which he said that he had checked it and that it was not correct. He also expressed his regret about that. I accept it in this way. I did not make such a demand.

Certain hon. members alleged in this debate that the PFP is co-operating with certain Press bodies in a search for some sort of scandal in order to derive party-political gain from that. Mr. Speaker, I believe you will allow me to mention that there were even newspapers that claimed that a file on the Secretary for Information had been handed to us. I want to state emphatically that nothing is further from the truth than this statement. As far as the Press is concerned, I do not know of any newspaper that will divulge its sources of information to an outsider. That is all I want to say about this. There is no truth whatsoever in allegations of this nature.

It goes without saying, of course, that the Opposition will not hesitate to reveal every malpractice that comes to its attention in the best possible way, irrespective of which individuals or institutions are involved. I want to emphasize once again that the PFP as a party is no seeker of scandal, nor has it ever been. We have done nothing that falls outside the normal duties of an Opposition party.

It is true—and we all know this—that rumours have been abroad for a long time in this country that everything in the Department of Information is not happening according to the required rules. However, that is not the reason for the debate which is being conducted here today. The debate in which we are involved today is not the result of a newspaper campaign. Nor is it the result of the initiative of a political party. It is the result of the report of the Auditor-General which was submitted to Parliament, a report which Parliament decided to investigate. For that reason I reject the allegations which were made with regard to the Opposition.

We have here today a report to Parliament, a report of almost 200 printed pages. The particulars of this report have already been published in detail and country-wide in the Press. It was also fit and proper that the two hon. members of the Opposition—the hon. member for Yeoville and the hon. member for Parktown—who served on the Select Committee, were speakers in this debate. On behalf of this side they singled out the gist of the charge and of the findings and summed them up as excellently as they conducted their cross-examination during the meetings of the Select Committee. Therefore my task today is an easy one. I do not want to repeat what has already been said, nor do I have anything to add as far as the facts are concerned. All that remains for me to do is to try to arrive at the right conclusions and to determine what should be done. In the first place I agree with those who said that, in the particular times in which we are living today, the Department of Information has a key role to play but then, of course as public relations body and image-maker, if it wants to continue to function effectively, its own image will have to be unimpeachable. I think most of us will agree that the Secretary of Information and his chief lieutenants are talented people, energetic and creative workers, no matter how much we differ with their methods and ideological approach. It is also true that, having regard to the nature of their work, they have to operate under extremely difficult circumstances and in the face of tremendous obstacles. For that very reason it is absolutely essential that a department such as the Department of Information should above all have credibility and the confidence, not only of our own public, but also of the people inside and outside South Africa whose eyes and ears it wants to reach.

It is unfortunately true that a Select Committee of the House of Assembly, consisting of 17 members of which 13 were members on the government side, found unanimously that they were so perturbed—not only “somewhat perturbed”, as the hon. member for Schweizer-Reneke said earlier today …

I said I was deeply perturbed. We stated in the report that we were perturbed, and it was my motion that was accepted.

That is true, but I am referring to what the hon. member said today.

We have before us a report in which 17 members of the House of Assembly found unanimously that they were so perturbed … I quote—

But those are my words.

I continue—

†An investigation into what? Into, first, the management as such of the department and, secondly, the financial control. We are not only dealing with the financial control. The proposal with which we are dealing is that the management of the department should be investigated. Therefore, the Select Committee’s recommendation does not contain an expression of mere concern at certain technical offences. There is also no point in emphasizing that the State suffered no financial loss. This should not be advanced as an argument for maintaining the status quo. No. The Select Committee’s indictment is a broad and definitive one and it is based on three grounds: weakness, inefficiency, and a lack of discipline in the delicate field of financial matters. I have indicated before that I regret this as much as anybody else, but the simple fact is that the credibility of the management and the image of the department have been gravely hurt. The position is being aggravated by several other factors, for instance by the fact that it is generally known that the Select Committee is only halfway through its work and that we are only dealing with what is in effect a first report. There is another report to come.

What are you insinuating?

No, I am not insinuating anything. Sir, you would not allow me to make insinuations. I should, however, like to furnish my point. We know that the report to come will deal with the findings of the Select Committee on the Auditor-General’s indictment that, in his opinion, there was a lack of proper prior planning which was the cause of considerable wasteful spending …

Order! Is the hon. member now discussing the Second Report?

No, Sir. I referred to the report of the Auditor-General.

Yes, but I want to know in fact whether you are now discussing the Auditor-General’s Second Report.

No, Sir, not at all. I merely mentioned it. [Interjections.] It is general knowledge. I think I am entitled to mention that it is generally known that what we have before us is only half of the story.

What do you know about the other half?

Sir, I know that we may not—I was not trying to do it— anticipate what the Select Committee would be likely to find on the further evidence and I have no intention of doing so. However, we cannot ignore the fact that it is known that this is not the end of the story. We can also not ignore the fact that, no doubt in very good faith, certain evidence has been disclosed by the management of the department. We find the evidence in the report before us. This must seriously hamper the future work of the department, and if this department is to carry on without any radical changes, their work would be seriously obstructed. The department is the major public relations agency of South Africa, and as such it cannot operate successfully if its products are suspect and if its collaborators, or those who help it, particularly its supporters abroad, should lack credibility.

*I was deeply perturbed, for his own sake as well, when I saw in the report of the Select Committee that the Secretary for Information referred to his programme in a letter to the Treasury, dated 4 August 1975. Mr. Speaker, I should like to address a few words to you personally in this connection.

Order! I merely want to remind the hon. member that I have already ruled that that letter should not be discussed because there could then possibly be 20 subjects on which hon. members could address me. If I were now to allow one subject to be singled out and debated, why, then, should I not allow other subjects, which also have no bearing on the subject before the House, to be singled out as well? That is why I have ruled this aspect out of order.

Mr. Speaker, I accept your ruling of course. I have to. I have no choice. However, I want to submit to you that the Secretary gave certain evidence to prove why he incurred certain irregular expenditure. Therefore I have to say, with all due respect, that if he submits something as a reason for certain steps he took, it seems right to me that we may at least consider that here. One of the reasons he advanced, a reason which in my opinion is relevant is that of the sponsored article programme according to which the services of journalists are bought with the purpose of reflecting a favourable image. However, I leave the subject of the quotation at that, in accordance with your ruling. [Interjections.] Very well, I am satisfied if we may not quote that statement here. [Interjections.] However, the whole world already knows about it.

Order! The hon. member may discuss it during the discussion of the hon. the Minister’s Vote.

Yes, but we are now dealing with a report, a report in which this matter plays an important part. The fact of the matter is that this casts a cloud of suspicion on journalists and commentators who in future might comment favourably on South African matters abroad. I do not think those of us who are sitting here are ignorant of what is happening in the world of propaganda. Nor are we ignorant of the methods which are being used. We know the world is full of professional word salesmen. We know that the Department of Information, with the type of work it has to do in every country, sometimes considers it necessary to use unorthodox methods. The task of our Department of Information is not, however, more difficult than that of the Department of Foreign Affairs. The Department of Foreign Affairs has a budget which is more than three times the size of that of the Department of Information. It also does public relations work, in fact more important public relations work than that of the Department of Information. It also has a programme of publications, but it has never happened yet that the Department of Foreign Affairs has found itself in the position that a charge was laid against it by the Auditor-General. Unfortunately the present management of the Department of Information has emasculated itself to such an extent, as a result of the publication of its evidence, that I cannot see how it could ever be put right again.

†The unhappy truth is that, whoever is responsible for the position, at the point we have now reached the Department of Information has unfortunately been grievously wounded, perhaps even mortally wounded, by what has broken over its head in respect of this Select Committee report. It is clear to me that a point has been reached where the present management of the department can forget about a successful repair job. The damage has gone too far. The department will have to be reorganized. When I say that, I do not mean that the undoubted academic talent of the Secretary for Information and his immediate lieutenants should not be inspanned to the full in other capacities.

*There is something else I have to add, i.e. that it is highly unfair of us to leave the responsible Minister of Information under whose supervision, authority and management this department falls, out of consideration in this discussion. According to our system the Minister concerned is responsible in all respects for what his department does or fails to do. In the present case we know that the hon. the Minister of Information had a very intimate relationship with his department and his departmental Secretary and others. The hon. the Minister is, in fact, directly responsible for the appointment of the Secretary of Information from outside the service. He knows that when that appointment was made, the Public Service Commission—and I have the 1972-’73 report of the Public Service Commission here …

Order! I am not prepared to allow a discussion on that subject.

Sir, I am sorry that I may not discuss the responsibility of the Minister.

Sit down!

I shall not sit down even if that hon. member screams until he becomes quite demented. [Interjections.]

Order!

Why does the hon. member not walk out? [Interjections.]

Order! The hon. member must proceed.

Mr. Speaker, I should like to request your ruling on this. Am I not allowed to discuss the responsibility of the hon. the Minister?

The way in which the hon. the Minister appointed the Secretary at the time is not relevant now. If the hon. member wants to argue about that, he may do so in the discussion on the Minister’s Vote. The House is now dealing with the First Report of the Select Committee and all the evidence which was given in so far as it is relevant.

Sir, I am sorry. I had hoped that we would also be able to discuss the effect of the report and the findings. The report does, in fact, state very clearly that Parliament is perturbed about the general management of the department. However, I have to abide by your ruling. As far as the evidence that was submitted is concerned, the hon. the Minister should have known what happened, and as Minister he will not be able to disengage himself from the situation which has arisen. On this occasion I am not charging the hon. the Minister with general incompetence—I leave our party-political differences aside—because he does not have that image. He should, however, know that he should not have continued with the portfolios of the Interior and Information and that he cannot continue with the portfolio of Plural Relations and Development, either—where he has a whole “empire” under him—and still have the comprehensive portfolio of Information. I said that I hoped that he realizes that there should be a conference between him and the hon. the Prime Minister on this matter soon. I have already suggested that the Department of Foreign Affairs was the best department to handle the foreign activities of the Department of Information. An inquiry by the Treasury and the Public Service Commission, as has been proposed, will not find less than the Select Committee itself found, and in that regard certain hon. members are quite correct. No matter how necessary further inquiries might be, in terms of our amendment or the other amendment, enough has happened already to make it necessary to reorganize the department without delay and to reconsider the position of the hon. the Minister concerned.

Mr. Speaker, we have before us two reports of the Select Committee on Public Accounts in which certain recommendations are made. Two amendments have been moved: The amendment of the PFP and the amendment of the National… I beg your pardon, the New Republic Party.

National?

They cannot be National, even if they want to be. The fact of the matter is that we have two amendments before us. Why these amendments? In this case, the amendment by the PFP is a moderate one, while the amendment by the NRP is in the superlative degree—in an obvious attempt to outbid the PFP in their effort to criticize the Government. [Interjections.] That is the reason behind it. Some where along the line, someone has told them that they are a more effective Opposition than the PFP, so they wanted to surpass the PFP with this amendment. [Interjections.] That is the reason. Both parties adopt the standpoint that at last they have here a little drop of water in the political desert in which they have found themselves during the past three months, and that they can now drink a little water. [Interjections.] But let us take stock of the facts. Hon. members must please give me a chance, because I listened patiently to all who spoke today.

Then you must not talk nonsense!

What is important at the moment? Let me say at the outset that a motion of censure of the Minister or of anyone else for that matter would certainly have been justified if we had tried to cover up and put the lid on the whole situation. Then such a motion would have been justified. But what did we do? We have devoted more time to the discussion of this report than the total amount of time which the Opposition requested for the discussion of the Information Vote. For that, they requested only three hours, while it took 4½ hours to discuss this report. One cannot image a better opportunity to rake up everything in the finest detail. I may also add that our own members of the Select Committee also recommended that a further investigation by the Public Service Commission and the Treasury should take place to go even further into the matter. In other words, there is no sign whatsoever here that we are trying to put the lid on, cover up or hide anything. We are uncovering the matter in this debate, and after that we will be uncovering it by way of an investigation by the Treasury and the Public Service Commission. Those reports will be received and we shall have a chance to discuss them as well.

In the House?

I am not the Leader of the House, and I therefore do not know whether it will be possible for time to be set aside for that purpose. Therefore I cannot give any undertaking, but what I can say, is that the report will probably be available before the Third Reading of the Appropriation Bill is discussed towards the end of this session and it will probably be possible to discuss the matter in the course of that debate. I assume that there will be an opportunity for that. But I cannot bind the hon. the Leader of the House by saying now what he is or is not going to do.

Before I discuss the report, I owe the hon. member for Yeoville replies to specific questions which he has put. I want to say at once that I am not going to reply in detail on all the thousands of minor matters that were referred to, for example, letters, dates, etc. Those matters have, in any case, been chewed and rehashed to the exhaustion of myself and everyone around me. Therefore I am not going to discuss them again. I am merely going to state the general policy, I am going to state the general standpoint as a Minister ought to do. As I have said, the hon. member for Yeoville touched upon two or three little matters in his speech and I want to reply to him on those matters.

Firstly, the hon. member reacted to the viewpoint that the Secretary for Information, the Department of Information, had allegedly failed to comply with the instructions from the Treasury in respect of economizing and the “Buy South African” campaign. In reply to written question 256, which he has put to me in the House, I furnished him with a list of 255 firms with which the department does business. Only a small percentage of those firms are overseas; the rest are all established in South Africa.

I am talking of local companies such as these.

I shall come to that in a moment. Just give me a chance. What is at issue here in practice, is mainly two things. What is at issue here in the first place, is that the department—as a result of a censorious report which Unesco distributed about the educational conditions of non-Whites in South Africa—had to react quickly, correctly and sharply by offering a publication which could be distributed, and here it is: Stepping into the Future. The area of circulation of this publication was not South Africa; it was Europe, America, and the rest of the world.

That is where the publication had to be circulated. Altogether 80 000 copies of this book were printed and it was felt that 50 000 should be printed in English, 5 000 in French, 15 000 in German, 5 000 in Portuguese; 5 000 in Spanish; and since the area of circulation would be Europe, it was, from every point of view, considered more advantageous to have the book printed in Europe so that the distribution and the transport costs would be lower. I can furnish the hon. members with the figures briefly. The freight charges alone would have been R12 700, and then it would still have taken between six and eight weeks before the books arrived in Europe, if they had been printed here. Air freight would have been the solution to get the books abroad in a hurry as a reply to Unesco’s onslaught, but that would have cost far more. That was therefore an additional consideration, apart from all the other considerations, why we had the book printed in Spain and not here in South Africa.

That is still less than the 10%. [Interjections.]

I still owe the hon. member an explanation in connection with another matter which he raised. [Interjections.] Hon. members must please not waste my time; I only have half an hour at my disposal and I should like to deal with the matter fully. I owe the hon. member for Yeoville an explanation on question 256, which he referred to in his speech and alleged, inter alia, that I had furnished false information in that I had said that no advance payments had been made in a number of cases, while that was indeed the case according to the report. I have the question here before me, and the fact of the matter is that as regards the specific case to which the hon. member is referring, the original reply which I handed in, did not read “none”. An open space was left against that part of the reply. I have been informed that the reason for that was—and I made inquiries into this personally—that at that stage the accountant was not sure what reply to give there because it was a question which had been put in the course of an investigation by the Select Committee and Audit. He did not write “none” there. But for some inexplicable reason, Hansard has inserted “none”, and that gives a picture which is totally different from the reply which I handed in. It would be well to institute an investigation into what happened there. I wish to stress once again that I have my original reply here and that we did not write the word “none” in that reply. But Hansard printed “none” there. I should like to take this matter further with Hansard to ascertain what happened there. That, then, is my explanation in connection with that specific aspect.

The third matter which I wish to discuss, is that the department did not—and I shall have more to say about this later on—effect savings or refund moneys. In this connection, I can furnish figures at once. In the year 1974-’75, R158 000 was refunded to Treasury; in the year 1975-’76, R481 000 was refunded, and in the year 1976-’77, R875 000 was refunded to Treasury. The instructions in that connection were, in other words, fully and scrupulously complied with.

With these few thoughts I want to leave the detail of the discussions which have, in any event, been very successfully disposed of one by one by my colleagues and preferably confine myself now to the broader concepts.

What about the 1976 question which was also wrongly answered?

It was not possible, within the limited time which we had at our disposal, to find out about that. But I shall go into it fully and furnish the hon. member with a comprehensive reply. In the short time at my disposal, I was not able to ascertain what happened in 1976.

What are the facts which we have before us at present? I want to say at once that all public funds must at all times be applied in the best possible way. Nobody must have any doubt about that and there may not be any doubt about the perfect, correct action and application of public funds. I want to state that immediately and very firmly.

Secondly, the Auditor-General was merely doing his duty by reporting irregularities which he found in an audit, to Parliament. Thirdly, the Select Committee acted correctly by investigating the matter, hearing evidence, arriving at certain conclusions and making certain recommendations in its report as well as in the Press statement which the chairman issued together with the reports.

Let us now lift out the crux of this whole matter. In the first place, not all the relevant financial instructions were complied with. I concede that immediately and I am not arguing about that. These instructions were not complied with—and wrongly so. Secondly, that gave rise to unauthorized expenditure. I am not arguing about this matter either. I accept that this expenditure was unauthorized. These were technical infringements which must be regarded as unauthorized expenditure strictly according to the rules. Thirdly, the Select Committee recommended that the expenditure should indeed be authorized by Parliament. It investigated the matter in full and ultimately decided that this expenditure should in fact be authorized. That is the recommendation before the House, a recommendation on which we are going to vote when I have finished my speech. A fourth aspect which is important is that the Committee also recommended—

I fully welcome this investigation for then it will be possible for the full picture and the problem as a whole to emerge. I welcome such an investigation with open arms. We have nothing to hide. We should like to show everybody what is going on there.

I want to make a few additional observations in respect of this entire matter. This entire matter is being handled in a one-sided manner and I think it must be stated that the Secretary for Information clearly stated in his evidence that he had already requested the Public Service Commission to send a Public Service inspector to his department to investigate this matter and also the question of sufficient administrative staff. That is a step which he has already taken. A second very important aspect which I want to make clear is that the Select Committee found that despite the disregarding of the instructions and regulations, the State has not suffered any loss and that the contracts were carried out to the letter. The State has not suffered any loss, in other words the cloud of conjecture, from which it seems to appear that unauthorized expenditure means that public money has gone astray, has been dissipated, for according to the Select Committee no loss was suffered by the State. I want to invoke this finding of the Committee. There has therefore been no squandering of money; that is what the Select Committee found. The hon. members can argue about the interest, and matters of that kind, and we can also argue about devaluation and a hundred other things. But I do not think we accomplish anything by doing so. I want to state, thirdly, that the Secretary for Information has already stated that all the financial regulations have now been fed into a computer and that they are available to the officials at all times so that they can see what regulations are specifically applicable to their work sphere. In other words, that is an immediate step to try to prevent anything of this nature happening again, and I accept that immediately.

I want to state that as responsible Minister, I not only fully support and accept the report, but I also fully welcome the further investigation; and because it is mainly concerned with staff matters and the non-compliance with financial regulations, I believe that the most suitable bodies to undertake the investigation are those recommended by the Select Committee, viz. the Public Service Commission, which is an expert commission on the question of staff, and the Treasury, whose life task it is to work with financial regulations every day. I think these bodies are best equipped to undertake such an investigation, and I therefore welcome that wholeheartedly. Therefore I cast the full weight of my influence into this matter and fully support the recommendation of the Select Committee, because I think it is necessary for the whole truth to emerge so that the gossip about the department can come to an end. That is the reason why I welcome it wholeheartedly.

I want to go further. I do not think the investigation should stop there. I think the investigation, although it is not a further audit, should go deeper than these two aspects only, and once again I think that the Public Service Commission and the Treasury are the best bodies to undertake such an investigation. The question which should be asked is whether, with the onslaughts on South Africa in the field of propaganda being what they are at present, the Department of Information is able to perform its professional task within the framework of its personnel system and its financial regulations. I want to ask whether it is physically possible. [Interjections.]

You do not like financial regulations …

Before the hon. member says anything further, I want to refer him back, not to his abode, but to an abode. I want to refer to Britain, whose Department of Information is not an ordinary Government Department. Britain’s Central Office of Information is completely independent of the Treasury and has its own internal audit and rules and regulations. I have a comprehensive pamphlet on it with me. The Government of Britain finds that its Department of Information cannot function normally within the framework of the Public Service with all its rules and regulations.

You do not like rules!

The hon. member must not say that I do not like rules. I can also refer to America as an example. I have with me here the Department of State News Release of September 1977, issued by President Carter’s brand-new information division, the Central Information Service. The crux of its content is that “The new agency’s budget and personnel systems will be autonomous”.

The CIA?

No, it is not the CIA, but the ICA. But that does not mean that no control is exercised in Britain and America. But their information departments act in a different way from an ordinary Government department in the effort to repel the propaganda war against them. I am not saying that that should also happen in South Africa. A more exhaustive investigation should, however, be done to see whether the Department of Information is able to perform its task properly. There must be full control, full regulations and a hundred other things. Not a single cent may be wasted. The financial control must be just as strict as always. The framework within such a professional agency operates, however, must be wider than the framework which is now applicable to a purely administrative department like a Government department. That is what the Americans and the British found. That is also what I find here at the moment as the responsible Minister.

Why did you only discover that now?

Just give me a chance to continue. The scope and intensity of the onslaught against us is so terrific that one simply has to react to it. The Department of Information stands in the front line of defence in this onslaught; it has the task of repelling this onslaught. I want to say immediately that I do not condone the fact that rules have up to now been disregarded. The rules must be complied with and for that reason I welcome the investigation. I do think, however, that with a view to the future, a close look should be taken at the nature of this onslaught and the way it is being handled. If the Committee recommends that the position should remain unchanged, then it does so. But I think that it should be looked into. I wish to add that these people work under terribly trying and difficult circumstances.

Like in the Seychelles?

When I look at the hon. member, he looks to me like a drooping palm-tree on the Seychelles. The people work at a terrific pace under strenuous conditions and terrific pressure. There is one of my top members of staff who is not at home for almost a third of the weekends in a year, because of assignments which they receive and have to carry out somewhere. Their decisions must often be taken quickly and finally, at short notice.

[Inaudible.]

Will the hon. member please keep his big mouth shut so that I can make my speech?

But you must not talk nonsense! [Interjections.]

Order! The hon. the Minister has a very limited amount of time.

Expenditure must suddenly be incurred to launch a counterattack against some onslaught or other or to explain an occurrence in South Africa. They are terribly busy. These are things which the hon. members are most welcome to discuss under my Vote. The fact remains that I prefer a more exhaustive investigation into the whole matter to ascertain what the position is.

The question is now what line of action the world expects from us in consequence of this report. I want to state, in the first place, that at this moment I have to judge on the basis of this report by the Select Committee and the evidence given. The Select Committee does not recommend that steps be taken against the members of staff.

That is not its function.

The Select Committee does not suggest that either. It recommends that a further investigation be instituted. In the light of the evidence, I find no reason at present to take any action against any members of staff. I am adamant about that. I shall reprimand, caution and exercise stricter discipline. So far, however, I have not found any motivation in the reports—I am not talking about newspaper reports, to which I do not pay any heed in any case—for taking any action against members of staff.

What about the allegation of fraud?

On the basis of the present report in my possession, I am not going to take action against any members of staff. However, I do want to give the House and the country the assurance at once that if further evidence still to be heard by the Select Committee, or the investigation to be instituted by the Public Service Commission and the Treasury, furnishes proof of corruption in any form or dishonesty for personal gain to the prejudice of the State, I shall not hesitate for a single moment to dismiss people from the department, regardless of their rank of status. Previously, in a different capacity, I had the courage to do so. In my capacity as leader of the party in the Transvaal I requested a former Deputy Minister to resign within 24 hours. I asked an MP to resign within 24 hours. I asked a city councillor to resign within 24 hours, and I shall ask officials to resign within 24 hours if the evidence is there. I shall do so. No one doubts that, and hon. members need not doubt that. The confidence of the Republic and the credibility of the department must be fully restored, otherwise the department cannot function properly. I am therefore awaiting for the coming report, I am waiting for the further report by the Select Committee and I am waiting for the report by the Public Service Commission and the Treasury. As soon as I have those reports in my possession, I shall study them and then I shall act in accordance with what is necessary and in the interests of South Africa and of this department.

Mr. Speaker, may I ask the hon. the Minister—I am not talking now about officials but generally: In view of the fact that fraud has definitely been proved in this record, does the Minister not think that action should be taken in respect of that fraud?

Which fraud?

The fraud of false representation which was calculated to prejudice the State.

I would not have discussed that matter, but I shall now discuss it at once. Just as the hon. member can prove this falsification from the report, so I can prove the opposite from the report. I say this while he talks about these specific matters. I am now talking about the letter. I think it is as clear as daylight. In question 564, Mr. Palm puts the following question to Mr. Van Rensburg—

To that Mr. Van Rensburg replied—

A little later, on page 133, paragraph 573, Dr. Van Rensburg asks Mr. Van Rensburg the following question in connection with this matter—

Mr. Van Rensburg replied—

These were the man’s own words.

But even against Van Rensburg it cannot be denied.

Order!

There has been an offence, and there has been a serious offence. I will act within the department in consequence of what happened here, to prevent a recurrence. I repeat that I shall decide after a further report and after further action, whatever it may be, what further action I should take. Public money will be safe and the department’s credibility will be restored. Whatever action may be necessary will be taken. But at this stage, on the basis of the report before me, I am not prepared to act against any officials, to get rid of them or to dismiss them. Depending upon further reports, I keep my options open and I shall react to them when they reach me.

I accept the recommendations by the Select Committee and I welcome a further investigation.

Question put: That all the words after “That” stand part of the Question,

Upon which the House divided:

Ayes—107: Albertyn, J. T.; Badenhorst, P. J.; Ballot, G. C.; Bodenstein, P.; Botha, C. J. van R.; Botha, J. C. G.; Botha, R. F.; Clase, P. J.; Coetzer, H. S.; Conradie, F. D.; Cronje, P.; Cruywagen, W. A.; Cuyler, W. J.; De Beer, S. J.; De Jager, A. M. van A.; De Klerk, F. W.; De Villiers, D. J.; De Wet, M. W.; Du Plessis, B. J.; Du Plessis, G. C.; Du Plessis, P. T. C.; Durr, K. D.; Durrant, R. B.; Du Toil, J. P.; Geldenhuys, G. T.; Hartzenberg, F.; Hayward, S. A. S.; Hefer, W. J.; Henning, J. M.; Heyns, J. H.; Horn, J. W. L.; Janson, J.; Janson, T. N. H.; Koornhof, P. G. J.; Kotzé, G. J.; Kotzé, W. D.; Krijnauw, P. H. J.; Kruger, J. T.; Langley, T.; Le Grange, L.; Le Roux, F. J. (Brakpan); Le Roux, F. J. (Hercules); Le Roux, Z. P.; Ligthelm, C. J.; Ligthelm, N. W.; Lloyd, J. J.; Louw, E.; Louw, E. van der M.; Malan, G. F.; Malan, J. J.; Malan, W. C. (Randburg); Marais, J. S.; Mulder, C. P.; Muller, S. L.; Nel, D. J. L.; Niemann, J. J.; Nortje, J. H.; Nothnagel, A. E.; Olckers, R. de V.; Palm, P. D.; Pretorius, N. J.; Raubenheimer, A. J.; Rencken, C. R. E.; Rossouw, D. H.; Rossouw, W. J. C.; Schlebusch, A. L.; Schoeman, J. C. B.; Schutte, D. P. A.; Simkin, C. H. W.; Smit, H. H.; Snyman, W. J.; Steyn, D. W.; Swanepoel, K. D.; Swiegers, J. G.; Terblanche, G. P. D.; Theunissen, L. M.; Treurnicht, A. P.; Uys, C.; Van den Berg, J. C.; Van der Merwe, C. V.; Van der Merwe, H. D. K; Van der Merwe, J. H.; Van der Merwe, S. W.; Van der Spuy, S. J. H.; Van der Walt, A. T.; Van der Walt, H. J. D.; Van der Watt, L.; Van der Westhuyzen, J. J. N.; Van Heerden, R. F.; Van Rensburg, H. M. J. (Mosselbaai); Van Rensburg, H. M. J. (Rosettenville); Van Wyk, A. C.; Van Zyl, J. J. B.; Venter, A. A.; Viljoen, P. J. van B.; Vlok, A. J.; Vorster, B. J.; Vosloo, W. L.; Wessels, L.; Wiley, J. W. E.; Worrall, D. J.

Tellers: J. H. Hoon, S. F. Kotzé, J. P. A. Reyneke, N. F. Treurnicht, A. van Breda and J. A. van Tonder.

Noes—22: Bartlett, G. S.; Basson, J. D. du P.; Dalling, D. J.; De Beer, Z. J.; De Jong, G.; De Villiers, I. F. A.; Eglin, C. W.; Lorimer, R. J.; Malcomess, D. J. N.; Marais, J. F.; Myburgh, P. A.; Page, B. W. B.; Pyper, P. A.; Raw, W. V.; Schwarz, H. H.; Slabbert, F. van Z.; Sutton, W. M.; Suzman, H.; Van der Merwe, S. S.; Van Rensburg, H. E. J.

Tellers: B. R. Bamford and A. L. Boraine.

Question affirmed and amendments dropped.

Mr. Speaker, I move—

Agreed to.