Minutes and outstanding reports: consideration and adoption

Meeting report

Apologies
The Acting Chairperson informed the Committee that the Chairperson, Ms L Chikunga (ANC), was delayed in Port Elizabeth Airport but she would join the Committee soon.

Consideration and adoption of the 14 September 2010 minutes
The Acting Chairperson went through the minutes page by page and invited Members to forward comments amendments and corrections.

Ms D Kohler Barnard (DA) pointed out that her surname was not supposed to have a hyphen.

On Page 2 paragraph 1 to 2 she pointed out some grammatical errors, and she suggested the insertion of the word “the” before the SAPS.

On the last Paragraph, third line, Ms M Molebatsi (ANC) pointed a minor spelling error.

Mr M George (COPE) said that on page 3 a shooting range was not built as it was something that was just outside.

Ms Kohler Barnard suggested the substitution of the word “build” with “construct” and Mr M Swathe (DA) seconded Ms Kohler Barnard.

On page 4, last paragraph Ms Kohler Barnard pointed out the omission of the word “the” before Philippi.

The Acting Chairperson encouraged Members to correct also the content of the report where they saw mistakes.

On page 5, Ms Kohler Barnard suggested the insertion of the word “the” in front of SAPS.

Ms Molebatsi pointed out a grammatical error on “off perfection” and suggested that it be changed to “be perfect”.

Ms M Dube (ANC) moved for adoption and Mr M Swathe (DA) seconded the motion; the 14 September 2010 minutes were adopted with amendments pending corrections.

Consideration and adoption of the 12 October 2010 Minutes
The Acting Chairperson informed the Committee that the 12, 13, 14, and 15 October 2010 minutes were considered for the Budget Review and Recommendation Report (BRRR). He suggested the consideration of the BRRR report for things that were not covered.

Mr V Ndlovu (IFP) said that if the BRRR report had been adopted already, then the Committee could not be able to consider and adopt it because it had been in the Announcements, Tablings and Committee (ATC) report and passed by the house.

The Committee Secretary, Ms Zola Vice, explained that other Committees that had few stakeholders regarded BRRRs as their annual reports while the Portfolio Committee on Police was still busy with stakeholders’ hearings after the BRRR.

Mr George pointed out that Members did not have copies of the 14 October 2010 minutes.

The Acting Chairperson informed Mr George that copies would be handed out.

Ms Kohler Barnard said that there might be some corrections to be made on those minutes but then the Committee would be unable to make changes. 

The Chairperson explained that there was no need to adopt the minutes of the 12, 13, 14, and 15 October meetings; the Committee could just acknowledge them as the true reflection of the proceedings, because they had been adopted already.

Consideration and adoption of the 10 March 2010 minutes
The Acting Chairperson went through the minutes page by page and Ms Kohler Barnard pointed out the need to remove a hyphen from her surname.

Ms A van Wyk (ANC) pointed out that the she was present and the minutes incorrectly mentioned that she had sent an apology.

Ms Chikunga apologised about her late arrival and on page 3 sentence 3, pointed out a grammatical error on “consultation on SAPS ranks”.

On page 4 she suggested the insertion of the word “civilian secretariat” and removal of the words “the Department”.

Mr Ndlovu moved for the adoption and Ms Dube seconded the motion; the 10 March 2010 minutes were adopted with amendments.

Consideration and adoption of the 16 March 2010 Minutes
On page 3, Ms Chikunga pointed out the need to change the grammatical error of the sentence beginning with “the new rank structure”

At the bottom of page 3, Ms Van Wyk said that the sentence which talked about “misconduct” in the last paragraph should be move to the next page. On bullet point 5 she suggested that the whole paragraph should be given a heading because it dealt with a totally different thing.

On Page 3, Ms Kohler Barnard pointed out a minor spelling mistake for the word “satellite”.

On page 6, Ms Chikunga pointed few minor spelling errors.

Ms Kohler Barnard moved and Ms Molebatsi seconded the motion, and the March 16 2010 minutes were adopted with amendments.

Consideration and adoption of the 23 March 2010 minutes
The Chairperson went through the minutes page by page, suggested the removal of a hyphen on Ms Kohler Barnard’s surname, and said that the word “Chairperson” should be in capital letters.

On page 5, paragraph 1, Ms Chikunga pointed out some grammatical mistakes on the sentence of “DNA” samples”.

Mr Ndlovu moved and Ms Kohler Bernard seconded the motion and the 23 March minutes were adopted with amendments.

Consideration and adoption of the 20 April 2010 Minutes
The Acting Chairperson went through the minutes page by page and suggested the correction of the word “farm workers” to farm dwellers”

Ms Kohler Barnard suggested that the pages should be numbered.

Ms Van Wyk suggested the rephrasing of the conclusion and Ms Kohler Barnard concurred.

Mr George raised his concern on the use of the tenses of the verb; he said that the minutes used the past tense as if the members of the South African Police Service (SAPS) were no longer bound by the code of conduct. He argued that the code of conduct was applicable to the future behaviour of the SAPS members.

Ms Kohler Barnard explained that minutes were written in the past tense for future reference. When a person read the minutes 20 years later, the minutes would be referring to what was discussed in the past.

Ms Van Wyk pointed out that the tense should be applicable to all set of minutes.

Ms Chikunga suggested a new paragraph for the sentence about “farm workers who were born there”

Ms Van Wyk corrected a spelling mistake and said that that the word “Landbou” was spelt with a “d” between “lan” and “bou”.

Mr Ndlovu moved and Ms Dube seconded the motion and the 28 April minutes were adopted with minor corrections.

Consideration and adoption of 4 May 2010 minutes
The Acting Chairperson went through minutes page by page, Ms Kohler Barnard asked the Committee Secretary to correct the spelling mistake on her surname in all the documents.

Ms Van Wyk said that Colonel Geldenhuys was not reflected to be from the Legal Services of the SAPS.

On page 3 Ms Van Wyk pointed out spelling errors and the use of capital letters for “Children in Conflict with The Law”.

Mr George moved for the adoption and Mr G Lekgetho (ANC) seconded the motion, and the 4 May 2010 Minutes were adopted with amendments.


Adoption of the 7 May 2010 report
On page 1, Ms Kohler Barnard pointed out a grammatical error in the formation of the plural of the word “stadium”; she suggested that “stadiums” should be changed to “stadia”.

On page 3, she corrected the use of acronyms such as PVAs - Public Viewing Areas (PVAs) without explaining their meaning first.

On page 2, Ms Chikunga suggested that the heading “distributed documents” should be changed to “confidential documents” because they was not distributed. Ms Van Wyk concurred.

Members agreed that the whole heading should be deleted after deliberating at length about it

On page 4, Ms Van Wyk said that the SAPS was not responsible for all viewing areas, only PVAs as stipulated by FIFA.

Mr George disagreed because SAPS would be called when there was a security threat in all viewing areas.

Ms Van Wyk cited an example of a sports bar at the Alfred and Victoria Waterfront; she said that the SAPS could not be held responsible for its security.

Mr Lekgetho moved and Ms Kohler Barnard seconded the motion and the 7 May 2010 report was adopted with amendments

Adoption of the 2 May 2010 report
The Chairperson reminded the Secretary about correcting the surname of Ms Kohler Barnard and went through the report page by page.

Ms Dube corrected a minor mistake regarding the fact that she was reflected as an alternate Member instead of a full member of the Committee.

Mr Ndlovu pointed out that the minutes referred to other minutes that had already been adopted in the house.

On page 5, Ms Kohler Barnard suggested the removal of an extra full stop after “PVA”.

On page 6, Mr George and Ms Chikunga corrected few spelling errors under Mr Anwar Dramat’s presentation.

On page 7, Ms Chikunga explained out that foreign language interpreters were not a challenge during the World Cup as incorrectly captured in the report.

Mr George moved for adoption and Mr Lekgetho seconded the motion, and the 2 May 2010 report was adopted with amendments.

Adoption of the 11 May 2010 report
The Chairperson went through the report page by page and invited Members’ comments.

Ms Van Wyk felt that there was no need to mention all the members of the delegation.

On page 4, Ms Kohler Barnard corrected the spelling of Ekurhuleni.

Ms Van Wyk corrected the spelling of firearm at the top of page 5, and Ms Molebatsi corrected the spelling of the name of Chief Ngcobo.

On page 6, Ms Van Wyk corrected the spelling of the name of Mr Koesner.

Ms Van Wyk moved for adoption and Ms Molebatsi seconded the motion, and 11May 2010 report was adopted pending corrections.

Adoption of 18 May 2010 report
Mr George mentioned that his name was not mentioned on the attendance register.

On page 2 Mr Ndlovu pointed out that the name of Ms Chikunga was used interchangeably with the title of the Chairperson; he then suggested that she should be referred throughout as the Chairperson.

Ms Kohler Barnard corrected the spelling of “leased” on page 3.

On page 5, bullet point 5, Ms Van Wyk suggested that the word “investigate” could be changed to research.

Ms Kohler Barnard moved for adoption and Mr Lekgetho seconded the motion, and the 18 May 2010 report was adopted with minor amendments.


Adoption of the 27 July report
Ms Kohler Barnard pointed out the incorrect use of small letter for the “c” in “Chairperson”
.
Mr Lekgetho mentioned that he was part of the meeting but he was not reflected the attendance register.
 
Ms Van Wyk said that there were very few Members in that meeting but the Committee Secretary would sort it out by checking the register.

Mr Lekgetho and moved for adoption and Ms Kohler Barnard seconded the motion.

Consideration and adoption of the 1 June report 2010
Ms Dube mentioned that she was incorrectly listed on the register as an alternative Member.

Mr George said that he was not reflected on the Members Register.

On page 1, Ms Dube recommended that the use of the word “apologies” should be used consistently, instead of interchanging it with the word “absent”.

On page 2, Ms D Kohler Barnard and Ms Dube corrected minor spelling mistakes.

Ms Dube corrected spelling for the words “unintended consequences”.

Mr Ndlovu moved for the adoption of the 1 June 2010 report and Mr G Lekgetho (ANC) seconded the motion. The June 1 2010 report was adopted with minor amendments.

Consideration and adoption of the report on the unannounced visit to Inanda Police Station in KZN
The Chairperson went through the report page by page and said that discussion of correction of the content would be confined to Members who were part of the delegation.

Ms Chikunga suggested that the delegation that visited the KwaZulu-Natal (KZN) police stations should be regarded as a subcommittee of the Portfolio Committee on Police. The reason was that the delegation did not encompass the whole Committee.

On page 1 Ms Kohler Barnard corrected spelling of KwaZulu-Natal by suggesting the insertion of capital letter K to that word.

Ms Chikunga pointed out that, on page 3 paragraph 1, the purpose of the visit was for fact finding not “investigate” as incorrectly captured.

Ms M Molebatsi pointed out some few grammatical errors in the last paragraph.

On page 3 Ms Kohler Barnard suggested the use of capital letters for the words “Firearm Register.”

Ms Chikunga felt that the first sentence under Committee Observations did not make sense, so it needed to be rewritten.

Ms Van Wyk raised her concern on the high number of firearms that were kept at the Inanda Police Station. She said that the firearms were supposed to be sent for destruction. Members agreed

On page 5 line 3, Mr George suggested the removal of the word deceased.

Ms Chikunga pointed out grammatical mistakes. She also pointed out the incorrect use of the words “possible juvenile”.

The Committee debated the matter at length and agreed to use the generic word “juvenile” to refer to prisoners who were older than children and younger than adults.

Ms Chikunga explained that the Child Act mentioned that the juvenile was an adolescence or teenager.

Ms Molebatsi moved for adoption and Ms Van Wyk seconded the motion, and the Inanda visit report was adopted with amendments.

Adoption of the visit to Esikhawini, Mtubatuba, Kwamashu Police Station report
Ms Molebatsi explained that his initials were M A not PA as incorrectly captured in the report.

On page 1, Ms Kohler Barnard corrected the formation of the plural in Community Police Fora, not Community Police Forums as captured. She then suggested that the Committee should inform the Correctional Services about the awaiting trial prisoners who were in the police holding cells. The Committee unanimously agreed.

On page 6 the Chairperson said that he noted that many things that emanated from reports needed follow up by the Committee.

Mr George said that in 2011 the Committee should be able to ask itself what steps had been taken about matters noted under observations.

Ms Van Wyk suggested that the Committee should make a list of all the outstanding issues that had to be addressed.

Ms Chikunga explained that the Committee had been doing some follow up on some issues but some departments took too long to respond.

Ms Van Wyk suggested that recommendations should be evaluated so that Members saw progress on the steps taken to remedy the challenges noted.

On page 5, bullet point 1, 7 Ms Kohler Barnard noted that reference to the South African Police Service (SAPS) stores in the police stations should be consistent throughout.

Ms Chikunga reminded the Committee that they had agreed that all community police fora (CPF) should be trained especially on administrative skills. She said that the recommendations had to state that the Vehicle Management Systems should be implemented around all police stations.

Mr Ndlovu asked for clarity on the reasons for which a police station could ask the Committee for a power generator.

Ms Chikunga explained that the some rural police stations in KZN experienced frequent power failures and had to resort to using candles. She then said that the sentence was constructed badly and the Committee was supposed to forward the request to the responsible entity.

On page 9, Ms Chikunga mentioned that the sentence which said that “the detectives were not welcomed by the community” needed to be rephrased to make sense.

On page 13, Ms Kohler Barnard suggested the use of capital letters for the words “Stock Theft Unit”.

On page 18, Ms Molebatsi suggested that the word “Dagga” should be used consistently rather be used interchangeably with the word “Marijuana”. Members agreed.

Ms Chikunga corrected the use of the words “Provincial Commissioner” in regard to undertaking the monthly inspection to the KwaMashu Police Station. After a lengthy debate the Committee agreed that the “Cluster Commissioner” would undertake the inspections until the situation of the Police Station improved.

On page 25, Ms Van Wyk corrected some grammatical errors. The Chairperson pointed the omission of the words “unavailability of the Child Register”. She also said that the report did not reflect the rampant problem of stock theft in the Mtubatuba area.

The Chairperson said that the Committee would address all the problems mentioned above.

Mr George explained that that in Mangweni area of KZN stock thieves would scout a village on horseback during the day, and come to rob people of their cattle and sheep at night. He then argued that it was not stock theft but stock robbery. He felt that the police in the rural KZN were not doing enough to curb the problem of stock theft.

The Chairperson said that the army could not be deployed to curb out stock theft as was suggested by the residents of the affected area. He said that more could be done by the police in that area.

Ms Van Wyk suggested the rewording of the paragraph and the addition of some explanation of the changing nature of stock theft as explained by Mr George.

Ms Chikunga raised her concern regarding the small number of recommendations. She said that the Committee could use the summary of findings on page 25 and 26 as recommendations. 

Ms Van Wyk suggested that the summary of recommendations should be grouped together with recommendations.

Mr George moved for adoption and Ms Van Wyk seconded the motion, the report was adopted with amendments.

The meeting was adjourned.