THE Department of Home Affairs has promised Parliament again it will get its books in order next year.

The department, with its annual budget of R5,2billion, was grilled by Parliament's Home Affairs portfolio committee yesterday after it got its ninth negative audit opinion this year.

Home Affairs director-general Mkuseli Apleni insisted that they were on the right track.

"The minister indicated that the department would achieve an unqualified audit within two years," Apleni said. "We are still not there but the indication is clear that we will be able to achieve this target."

Home Affairs had aimed at developing four centres of excellence - offices where everything runs smoothly - but had only been able to create two.

When asked why he could not even ensure that four centres were functioning at a very high standard, Apleni said: "We are also dependent on the Public Works Department for improving our buildings."

Apleni admitted that "pushing back the frontiers of fraud and corruption" was a "significant challenge".

But he downplayed Home Affairs' unauthorised expenditure of R99,8million, saying he hoped Parliament's standing committee on public accounts (Scopa) would write this amount off.

But Scopa chairperson Themba Godi told Sowetan that while the Treasury had written to them about the R99million unauthorised expenditure, he had not received any documents from Home Affairs to help them decide whether this amount could be written off.

MPs asked why Home Affairs promised last year to have a register of their R1,6billion assets in place by November 2009 but failed to do so.

Apleni said: "Unfortunately, the department has been moving at a slow pace. We are saying there has been an improvement."

Home Affairs also ran up R320million in "irregular" spending.

Apleni explained that R261million of that was paid to GijimaAst to develop an online ID system. Home Affairs has since cancelled the contract.