The annual report of the Department of Water Affairs and Forestry (DWAF) for 2002/03 was prepared in terms of the requirements of the Public Services Regulations of 1999 and the Public Finance Management Act. The report basically provides an overview of the Department’s activities for the period 1 April 2002 to 31 March 2003.

This brief provides an assessment of the Department’s annual report for 2002/03. The requirements of an annual report are considered and various aspects of the report are discussed.

The Public Services Regulations of 1999 require the publication of annual reports as a means "to permit oversight by the public and legislatures". It is stipulated that the following information should be included in an annual report:

• Planning and service delivery:
• The core mandates, functions and objectives of the department.
• The service standards for core objectives and the results achieved in meeting standards.

• Organisation:
• The department's organisational structure and approved establishment.
• The number of employees and of vacancies, per component, grade and nature of employment.
• The number of persons employed in addition to the approved establishment.

• Job evaluation
• By CORE, occupation and grade, the number of posts evaluated, upgraded and downgraded.
• The number of employees promoted as a result of posts that were upgraded, according to race, gender and disability.
• The number of employees whose remuneration exceeds the grade determined by job evaluation and the reasons for each deviation, by CORE and occupation.

• Remuneration:
• The percentage of the budget excluding transfer payments, expenditure on land and buildings, as well as miscellaneous payments spent on:

• Total personnel costs.
• Administrative expenditure.
• Professional and special services.

• The personnel costs in intervals of R20 000, by race, gender, disability, CORE and occupation.
• The percentage of total personnel costs spent on the senior management service.
• The costs of overtime, allowances and benefits as a percentage of total personnel costs.

• Affirmative action, recruitment, promotions and termination of services:
• The progress made in implementing the affirmative action programme.
• The number of employees recruited per grade and occupation, indicated according to race, gender and disability.
• The number of employees promoted per grade and occupation, indicated according to race, gender and disability.
• The number of employees per grade and occupation, whose services were terminated, indicated according to race, gender and disability.
• The number, occupations and grades of foreign appointees.

• Performance management and skills development:
• Employees who received rewards for performance, indicated according to grade, CORE, occupation, race, gender and disability.
• The targets for training in the training plan, and the progress made in attaining those targets.
• The allocation for training in the departmental budget, and the actual amounts spent on each training target, indicated according to race, gender, disability and occupation in each grade in each CORE.
• The number – externally and internally – and the type of training programme implemented.

• The number and nature of incidents of injury, illness and death occurring in the course of official duty or in the work environment.

• The number and subject matter of collective agreements entered into.

• Sick leave:
• The average number of days' sick leave taken by employees in the department indicated according to their grades and occupation.
• The total number of days' sick leave taken by employees in a department.
• The estimated cost to the department of the leave so taken.
• The number of employees who took more than 15 continuous days' sick leave in the year under review.

• The number of employees discharged due to ill health.

The Act requires that an annual report on the activities of a department must be prepared within five months of the end of a financial year. The Act determines that the annual report must:

• Present the state of affairs in a department in a fair manner in relation to its business, financial results, performance against predetermined objectives, and its financial position at the end of the financial year concerned.

• Include detail of the following:
• Any material losses through criminal conduct during the reporting period.
• Any financial losses as a result of unauthorised, irregular, fruitless or wasteful expenditure during the reporting period.
• Any criminal and/or disciplinary steps taken as a result of the above-mentioned losses.
• Any material losses recovered or written off.
• Any other matters that may be prescribed.

In providing an overview of a department’s activities, an annual report should deal with the progress in implementing a department’s line function duties as well as the management of its financial affairs and human resources.

The 2002/03 annual report of the DWAF consists of five parts and two appendices. Part 1 provides a general overview of departmental activities, including information on the ministry, the legislative mandate of the Department, and the public entities reporting to the Minister. Part 2 deals with human resources management, although the information for this section is actually provided in a table format in appendix 1 of the report. Information on the performance of the different departmental programmes is provided in part 3. The financial affairs of the Department are discussed in part 4 and 5 of the report. Part 4 presents the report of the Department’s Audit Committee, while part 5 includes DWAF’s financial management report for the reporting period as well as various reports by the Auditor-General on different financial statements of the Department. In addition to the already mentioned appendix 1, the second appendix provides information on the publications and key documents produced during the reporting period.

Through the different sections of the report mentioned above, the Department’s annual report does cover the three different aspects of its line function duties, financial affairs and human resources.

In general, the report can be considered to be in compliance with the guidelines of the Public Services Regulations for annual reports. However, the following aspects of the report may be deemed to insufficiently address the requirements of the Regulations:

• The department's organisational structure and approved establishment are not indicated. However, it is mentioned (see page 7 of the report) that the Department will implement a new, simplified structure from 1 April 2003, which will be reflected in the next annual report.
• Basic detail on job evaluations is provided (see tables 3.1 and 3.2), but no reasons are provided for the deviations from determined job evaluation levels.
• There is no clear indication, apart from general statements on representivity, on the progress made in implementing the affirmative action programme of the Department.
• The report does not provide detail on skills development, e.g. progress to achieve training targets, expenditure on training and number of trainees per salary level, race, gender and disability.
• Although information is provided on disability leave (see table 8.2), the number and nature of incidents of injury, illness and death occurring in the course of official duty are not indicated.
• No detail is provided on the number and subject matter of collective agreements entered into during the reporting period. If none, a statement to this effect should also be provided.
• The information on sick leave (see table 8.1) does not include detail on the number of employees who took more than 15 continuous days' sick leave in the year under review, and the number of employees discharged due to ill health.

The Act requires that an annual report should present the state of affairs in a department in a fair manner in relation to its business, financial results, performance against predetermined objectives, and its financial position at the end of the financial year concerned. This requirement is subjective in the sense that the manner of fairness is not clearly defined in the Act. However, the information in the annual report is provided in relation to all the aspects mentioned in the Act. The activities of the Department are discussed in relation to the various programmes and sub-programmes, with an indication of actual performance (see part 3 of the report). The report also includes detail on the Department’s financial position and results, including audited reports from the office of the Auditor-General.

The Act also requires the provision of detail on material and financial losses. Although such information is provided, it is scattered throughout the report. For example, in the financial statements information is supplied on various material losses (see page 118) and irregular expenditure (see page 129). However, the report does not provide an indication of measures taken to address the causes of material losses, and the reasons for the irregular expenditure are not clear. Through the manner in which information on material and financial losses are presented, it is therefore difficult to have a clear grasp of the nature and extent of such losses, and the steps taken to deal with and prevent such losses.

The 2002/03 annual report follows a similar format to that of the 2001/02 report. However, the 2002/03 report includes additional information under part 1. These new sections – called the State of Water Resources Report and the State of Water Services Report – provide useful background data on the availability and use of water resources, the population’s access to basic water supply and sanitation infrastructure and the economic and financial costs of water service provision.

In comparison with the previous report, some information has been re-arranged in the 2002/03 annual report:

• Information on publications and key documents published has been moved from Part 1: General Information to the appendices (as appendix 2).
• The information on the Department’s human resources management is now provided as an appendix (appendix 1) and not, as in the case of the previous annual report, as part of the main text of the report under Part 2: Human Resources.

Under part 1 of the 2002/03 report the information on the Ministry omits any detail on national projects with which the Ministry was involved. However, the 2001/02 report included a section on national projects that referred to various ministerial activities such as the launching of projects and participation in various events.

Although the information provided on the Department’s human resources management is similar to that in the previous annual report, it is not in all respects as detailed as in the previous report:

• The information on staff in relation to race, gender and disability does not provide a clear indication of the Department’s progress with affirmative action, and in achieving its targets. Reference is made to the achievement of employment equity targets under Part 1: General Information (see page 7 of the report), but no specific data is included. In this regard the 2001/02 report was more detailed, as it included tables on the progress made with affirmative action at senior management level as well as for employees at levels below the senior management structure. The 2001/02 report also provided a clear indication of the Department’s affirmative action targets for the reporting period.
• A separate table to indicate the number of staff injured on duty (fatal and non-fatal injuries) is not included.
• The 2002/03 report does not include information on human resource development, i.e. training and skills development, within the Department. The 2001/02 report included various human resource development related tables that indicate skills development according to salary band, race, gender and disability, types of training provided, expenditure per training programme, and bursaries granted according to salary level, race, gender and disability.
• The 2002/03 report does not include labour relations information. In contrast, the 2001/02 report referred to collective agreements, the progress with the development of labour relations guidelines and included misconduct statistics for the reporting period.

For oversight purposes, the audit reports by the Auditor-General on the financial matters of the Department (part 5 of the report) are of specific relevance. In comparison with the audit report of the previous reporting period, the problems highlighted in the audit report for the year ended March 2002 still occur in the audit report for the year ended March 2003. These problems are related to the fact that complete and proper records of the financial affairs of the trading entities have not been maintained separately from those of the Department’s budget vote. As a result, the Auditor-General could not conclude on the accuracy and completeness of the inventories disclosed in the financial statements.

Similarly, the Auditor-General’s report on the 2002/03 water trading account refers to a recurring problem also mentioned in his report on the 2001/02 water trading account, namely the difficulties with the recovery of revenue from municipalities in the Department’s Limpopo Region. In addition, the Auditor-General’s report on the 2002/03 water trading account highlights a number of other weaknesses in the Department’s internal control of this account (see page 146 of the 2002/03 annual report).

The manner in which information in part 3 of the annual report is presented, creates a clear linkage with the statement of strategic objectives in the strategic plan. This is due to the fact that the key outputs and service delivery indicators for each sub-programme is stated, which is then followed by an indication of the actual performance during the reporting period.

In most cases the information provided on the actual performance of sub-programmes includes quantitative data, e.g. the number of reports written or site visits conducted, which facilitates an assessment of a programme’s performance. However, in some instances quantitative data in terms of actual performance is lacking, especially for the reporting on the performance of the sub-programmes of Corporate Services. In other cases it is possible to provide additional data to indicate performance during the reporting period, e.g. under the Social and Ecological Services Sub-programme of the Water Resources Programme.

It is mentioned in the annual report (see page 7) that the inclusion of the two new sections – the State of Water Resources Report and the State of Water Services Report – is the result of an attempt to address the information needs of other agencies, especially the South African Human Rights Commission (SAHRC). In its recently released fourth annual report on economic and social rights, the SAHRC referred to various aspects of DWAF’s reporting to the Commission that are deemed unsatisfactory. The following aspects referred to in the SAHRC report can perhaps also be considered for inclusion in the Department’s annual report:

• An indication of whether the Department’s total allocated budget for the reporting period was considered adequate to fulfil its mandate.
• A more specific motivation by DWAF for the variances, i.e. over or under expenditure, on budget allocations. For example, the SAHRC considered DWAF’s reference to variances in spending as insignificant, to be unacceptable. According to the SAHRC accounting is required for such variances. In the annual report the Department actually still refers to variances in spending of certain programmes as insignificant (see page 113).

The DWAF annual report for 2002/03 provides detailed information on departmental activities, human resources and financial affairs. While the report complies with the reporting requirements set for annual reports, this brief has highlighted certain aspects for which additional information can possibly be supplied.

Department of Public Service and Administration. Public Service Regulations, 1999. Obtained from website address: http://www.polity.org.za/html/govdocs/regulations/1999/reg99-679.html

Department of Water Affairs and Forestry. Annual report 2001/2002.

Department of Water Affairs and Forestry. Annual report 2002/2003.

Department of Water Affairs and Forestry. Strategic plan: multi-year 2002/03–2004/05.

National Treasury. The Public Finance Management Act, Act 1 of 1999 (as amended by Act 29 of 1999). Pretoria: Government Printer.

South African Human Rights Commission. Fourth economic and social rights report for 2000–2002.