Committee Report on Oversight Visit to the Eastern Cape

Meeting report

Consideration of Report on Oversight Visit to the Eastern Cape
The Chairperson noted that Members were in possession of the draft report on the Committee’s oversight visit to the Eastern Cape. She asked if Members wanted to deal with the report page by page or if they wanted to tackle specific sections in it.

Mr M Mdakane (ANC) observed that the report covered all the important issues and only contained minor spelling and grammatical errors that needed to be corrected. The important part of the report was the findings and recommendations and the Committee should focus its discussion on this. He mentioned that oversight function was the most important obligation of Parliament since it not only helped to address blockages but also kept Members acquainted with grassroots issues. As a result of the visit, officials from the Eastern Cape government had now started to address some of the problems highlighted in the report.

Ms M Borman (ANC) congratulated the Chairperson and the Committee Secretary for producing an excellent report within a short space of time. She noted however that there were still minor issues that needed to be ironed out and suggested the report should be sent for editing. She proposed that if Members were happy with the content then the meeting should just deliberate on the recommendations listed in the report.

The Chairperson also reiterated the importance of oversight visits. She added that the Committee Section and the researchers would all help to ensure that the report was finalised and was political.

Discussion on Recommendations
The Chairperson stressed that the issue of intergovernmental and intra-governmental planning should be seriously looked at. There was a great need to develop a national policy that would coordinate and manage the beneficiary list. It was necessary that the public, municipalities and the provinces participate in such a process.

Mr T Botha (COPE) asked who should take responsibility for the allocation of houses after the developing contractors had finished their work.

Mr A Figlan (DA) explained that the allocation of houses was a political function. Local councils and municipalities were in charge of the process of allocating houses and had to make sure that the beneficiary lists were updated and correct at all times.

The Chairperson suggested that the Committee should call for the revival of community structures such as the housing forum to be part of the process.

Ms Borman expressed concern about the houses that were unfinished but were given to beneficiaries. She proposed that Committee should make a recommendation that houses should only be given when they were finished and had all the basic services such as water and electricity.

Mr Mdakane suggested that the Committee should make a general recommendation that all housing developments should be in line with the principles of human settlement before they were allocated to people. It did not help to hand over houses that were incomplete.

The Chairperson pointed out that project managers themselves were not doing enough to monitor the projects because they resided far away from the projects. The pace of development was an area of concern. Finally, she emphasised that contractors who were in breach of their contractual agreements needed to be blacklisted and disqualified.

Mr Mdakane added that the issue of contractors not finishing their projects on time was costing government lots of millions.  The value of the construction material kept on going up despite the delays in the construction.

The Chairperson observed that there was a problem of littering in the Nelson Mandela area.

Mr Mdakane countered that this was a national problem and added that this should be flagged as findings and not necessarily a recommendation.

The Chairperson asked whether the report could still be debated in the House given the time constraints and the tight programme of Parliament.

Given the amount of work that the Committee had done, Mr J Matshoba (ANC) felt very strongly that the report should at least be presented to the House.

The Chairperson commented that if the report was not tabled in the House, the Minister of Human Settlement would not take the recommendations seriously.  The report must be referred to the ATC so that the Minister is compelled to deal with the recommendations.

Mr Mdakane also suggested the report should be distributed to the Eastern Cape people.

The Chairperson proposed that a statement should be made about the oversight trip in the following week. He would also ensure that the report was adopted by Parliament.

The Chairperson thanked all the Members for their presence and hard work.

The meeting was adjourned.