Public Services Select Committee: Committee's Strategic Framework Plan for 2010-2015

Meeting report

Opening Remarks
The Chairperson expressed concern that the meeting was delayed pleaded with Members to be punctual for meetings. He reminded the Committee Secretary to make sure that Members received all the information and documents that were part of the meeting on time. He also asked the Secretary to revisit the option of sending text messages to Members as they were unable to access their emails.

Consideration and Adoption of the Committee Draft Business Plan

The Chairperson tabled the Committee’s draft five-year business plan for consideration. He noted that in terms of procedure, the Committee had to go through the plan page by page and handed over to the Committee Secretary.

Mr Masibonge Mzwekoli, Committee Secretary asked the Member’s inputs about the Committee’s key performance indicators that were tabled in the Plan for the next four years and emphasised that this was a very important part of the Plan.

Mr M Jacobs (ANC; Free State) wanted clarity on how they reconciled the outputs and measures they had identified, with the challenges listed on page six in the document.

The Secretary explained that the challenges should be dealt with retrospectively. Furthermore, he proposed that a column be added to indicate what had to be done or what the Committee would be doing in order to match with the challenges. He also suggested that timeframes had to be given to those challenges and achievements.

MrJacobs suggested that the Committee had to have a plan of action to guide them on which priorities they had achieved.

Mr M Mlenzana (COPE, Eastern Cape) applauded the Secretary for compiling an excellent and well categorised Business Plan. It was apparent that the Secretary had given greater attention and weight to what the Committee should focus on in terms of its mandate. The Committee should engage with the Department of Public Works so that the latter could simplify their strategy in terms of their targets for job creation and goals that they wanted to achieve. Finally, he objected to the proposal that the Committee’s priorities should remain the same for four years. Instead, he suggested that those priorities should be shifted as the years passed on.

Mr H Groenewald (DA; North West) agreed with Mr Mlenzana. The Committee should have new priorities every year.

Mr D Feldman (COPE; Gauteng) also congratulated the Committee Secretary for a very comprehensive document.

The Chairperson reminded Members that the Committee had quarterly programmes which were guided by the Business Plan.

The Business Plan was adopted with a few changes.

Adoption of the Committee Minutes
The Chairperson opened the floor to Members to make any changes to the minutes.

Mr Jacobs proposed that the attendance register should be part of the minutes.

The Chairperson explained that at some meetings, Members had to sign the time of their arrival and departure on the register. He agreed with Mr Jacobs that as from that meeting it had became their policy to attach attendance registers with the minutes.

Mr Mlenzana suggested that the first sentence on page two had to be reconstructed as it was not their first time meeting as the Committee but their first from their long interval.

Mr Mlenzana wanted paragraph 2.5 on the last page to be deleted as it didn’t form part of the minutes.

The Committee agreed with Mr Mlenzana and the minutes were adopted thereafter.

Discussion on proposed Gauteng and Mpumalanga Oversight visit
The Chairperson explained that they had targeted several entities in Johannesburg for their oversight visit but had to cut those down because of time constraints. He proposed that during the oversight visit, the Committee should first visit the entities and thereafter the communities. He asked the Committee Secretary to brief them on the oversight visit programme.

The Secretary tabled the oversight visit programme before the Committee, highlighting who the Committee would interact with during their trip to the two provinces.

Mr Groenewald pointed out that the Committee had played an important role in the building of the World Cup stadiums. Therefore, he suggested that the Committee conduct visits to these stadiums before the end of April 2010.

The Chairperson explained that the initial plan was to visit stadiums in Johannesburg. However, this had to be cut because the Committee had limited time. He also cautioned that the Committee had to check if it had enough funds in its budget to carry out these visits.

Mr Jacobs thought that the Committee was going to visit Soccer City Stadium but was surprised when it was not in the programme. He raised his concern about the Committee not being given enough publicity by the media and wanted to know if the Secretary had organised media coverage for the oversight visit they were going to embark on.

The Chairperson agreed that the Committee’s visits should be publicised by both local and national media. He asked the Committee Secretary to organise media coverage with the Parliamentary Communication Office.

Mr Mlenzana wanted clarity as to what the Committee would be doing at Empakeni and expressed concern that they would be viewed as inspectors.

The Chairperson explained that the Committee would visit Empakeni as Members of the Select Committee on Public Services and not as inspectors. The visit would help the Committee identify the challenges that communities were facing.

The Chairperson suggested that the Committee invite Traditional Leaders as most of the areas in Mpumalanga were semi rural. He pleaded with the Members to be punctual for the oversight visit.

He thanked Members for their outstanding participation and inputs. He also thanked the Parliamentary Monitoring Group for always being there for the Committee.

The meeting was adjourned.