Public Enterprises Portfolio Committee Oversight visit Committee Report: adoption

Meeting report

Adoption of First-term Committee Programme

The Chairperson tabled the first-term programme and opened the floor for comments. She mentioned that the Committee needed to review legislation that regulated Public Enterprises as it was one of the outstanding matters from the previous year.

Certain Members expressed concern about items that were not in the draft programme and decisions taken by the Chairperson without consulting the Committee. They referred specifically to the investigation that was launched by the Chairperson into Transnet following allegations of over-expenditure, financial misconduct and irregularities by this entity.

The Chairperson explained that she did not consult the Committee because she was protecting the whistle blowers who had given her secretive documents. If those documents had been leaked, their identity would have been exposed. The initial investigation had shown contradictory results- there was some merit in some of the allegations and in other cases it was overstated.  She apologised for not consulting Members and reassured them that she had learnt her lesson.

Mr L Greyling (ID) suggested that the Committee needed to look at the procedures on how they dealt with complaints by whistle blowers or people from within the company without causing more harm to those companies.

Mr M Oriani-Ambrosini (IFP) raised his concerns about the powers of the Committee and its Chairperson regarding decisions that were taken by the Chairperson without the consultation of the Committee Members.

Mr P Van Delen (DA) seconded Mr Ambrosini and wanted clarity on the mandate of the Chairperson and the Committee.

Mr G Koornhof (ANC) suggested that all State Owned Enterprises (SOE) had to appear equally before the Committee as not to show favouritism.

Mr Van Delen agreed with Mr Koornhof and stated that they had to be careful of over emphasising on certain SOE’s as it would lead to investors running away as it gave the impression  that there was something wrong with those SOE’s.

The Chairperson clarified that some SOE’s had many subsidiaries which was why it seemed as if they were called more often than others by the Committee and in future they would specify which subsidiaries they had called. She also emphasised that they had to focus more on Transnet which was one of the SOE’s as the State had invested huge amounts.

Mr Oriani-Ambrosini suggested that the Committee had to obtain “summons to produce documents” in order to get SOE’s to produce confidential document in cases where they believed that those documents would form part of an enquiry. He also suggested that SOE’s, especially Eskom, ought to have public hearings in order to interact with the public.

Mr M Nhanha (COPE) asked if the Committee had power to call other domestic airlines or their powers were limited to South African Airways only.

The Chairperson confirmed that the Committee had powers to call any of the domestic airlines.

Members agreed that Eskom had to appear before the Committee to report back about their funding model. They also agreed to arrange a two-day workshop where they could brainstorm about their duties and the programme for the year. The Department of Public Enterprises would be invited to participate in the workshop.

The Committee adopted the programme but gave a mandate to the Management Committee to rework it.

Adoption of Outstanding Minutes
The Chairperson tabled all the outstanding minutes from the previous year for consideration. These minutes were dated 07, 13, 20, 27 October 2009, 03 and 10 November 2009.

Members pointed out and corrected the minor grammatical errors, incomplete sentences and changed all the wording of the headings of the Minutes. All the outstanding minutes were adopted with amendments.

The Chairperson promised to listen to the audio tapes of the minutes to ensure that there were no important information that were omitted and to check if the names of the Members in the attendance matched the names captured in the minutes.

The Committee decided to postpone the adoption of all outstanding oversight visit reports.  These reports will be approved in the next meeting on 16 February 2010.

The Chairperson asked Members to put their differences aside and do their job to their outmost best.

The meeting was adjourned.