Members of Parliament's Standing Committee on Public Accounts (Scopa) on Tuesday expressed frustration with officials from the Department of Human Settlements over their failure to answer questions in connection with the multi-billion rand N2 Gateway housing project in Cape Town.

Officials from the national and provincial departments, as well as the City of Cape Town, were meeting Scopa and the Portfolio Committee on Human Settlements to answer questions about a 2008 special audit report on the project conducted by the Auditor-General.

The report found that no business plan was in place prior to the project beginning, nor had sufficient land been acquired.

It also stated that the roles and responsibilities of various spheres of government were not clearly defined.

Funding to complete the project was also not secured before commencement, as only R2,5 billion of the estimated project cost of R4,2 billion had been budgeted for by the various government departments as at July 2007.

The N2 Gateway Project, which began in 2005, planned to deliver 22,000 housing units, but has been dogged by controversy. From 2006, the City of Cape Town has not been part of the steering committee for the project.

Yesterday, questions centered around who was responsible for the failures highlighted by the auditor general, whether those responsible had been brought to book and whether measures had been put in place so that the project proceeded without further hiccups.

When officials, who included Department of Human Settlements national director general Itumeleng Kotsoane, could not answer questions to the satisfaction of Scopa members, committee chairperson Themba Godi announced a 15-minute break to allow the officials to gather their thoughts.

But when they returned, he announced that the committee had decided that the meeting would be postponed until August 5 to give the officials the chance to re-read the report and prepare themselves for questioning.

Godi said there had been general consensus amongst members that they could not proceed as there was a "great deal of dissatisfaction" about answers to questions posed by the committee.

"Our role is holding people accountable because it's public funds being used to implement the project."

He said the committee would "start afresh" in August, by which time he hoped officials would have re-read the report and "found each other".

Other committee members were less than impressed.

Committee member Lorraine Mashiane said: "I would like to make a proposal that the officials go back, do their homework and deliberate before attempting to answer us as it's disheartening that they are unable to give us the answers we are looking for."