Third Term Committee Programme & Report on the Oversight Visit to Mitchells Plain: adoption

Meeting report

Welcome and Apologies
The Chairperson welcomed Members and informed them that the Department of Labour would not be present to go through the findings of the oversight report with the Committee. The Director-General (DG) was representing the Minister of Labour at the Cabinet Lekgotla and the Committee did not want to engage with junior officials but with the head so that it could urgently act on those findings. It was therefore, important for the Committee to wait for the DG and schedule a meeting with the Department for the following week.

The Chairperson read out an apology from Mr D Feldman (COPE) but did not accept it because of the manner it was written as it did not conform to the standard procedure.

The Third Term Committee Programme
The Chairperson suggested that Members go through the programme individually and thereafter the Committee would adopt it at the next meeting.

Mr Z Mlenzana (COPE, Eastern Cape) noted that there were two documents that the Committee needed to go through and was concerned about time management because there were too many activities including oversight visits Members had to attend to in the third term. It was therefore crucial that the Committee should rather adopt the third term programme since it had been emailed to Members earlier and they had already applied their minds to it. The second document was the draft report on the Oversight Visit to Mitchells Plain which was also issued to Members beforehand. He therefore proposed that the Committee adopt the two documents so that when it met the Department, it did so with a document which was its own.

The Chairperson asked the Ms Phumelele Sibisi, Committee Secretary, to take the Committee through the Third Term Committee Programme.

Ms Sibisi informed Members that the Department of Communications was scheduled to brief the Committee on the SA Post Office Bill on 24 August 2011. However, this would no longer take place and the Committee had to slot the Department in for next week. The meeting with Transnet would also be rescheduled for the following week. In addition, she noted that the week of the 16-19 August was the week of the oversight visits and the Committee would be visiting Coega Development Corporation in the Eastern Cape. She asked if the Chairperson wanted to talk on that. Lastly, she endorsed Mr Mlenzana’s proposal that Members should adopt the report so that when the Committee met the Department next week it had an official document.

The Chairperson informed the Committee that an application for the trip (to Coega) had been sent and was approved but the Committee Secretary had subsequently informed her that the Select Committee on Public Services had an approval for an oversight visit to Free State. She therefore would have to meet with the Chairperson of Select Committee on Public Services and the whips of both Committees to discuss the way forward for a solution.

Mr Mlenzana asked if there was any other way the Committee could rearrange the meetings to go together with the oversight visits so as to take them outside Parliament.

Mr R Tau (ANC, Northern Cape) agreed that the Chairpersons should meet with the Whips and sort out the problem. Secondly, he highlighted that Mr Mlenzana’s suggestion was to “kill one bird with one stone” because the Committee was pressed for time. He emphasised that there was nothing wrong for a committee of Parliament to call a Department outside of Parliament so long as this had been brought to the attention of the institution. He therefore suggested to the Committee Secretary to play around the programme in terms of oversight so as to give effect to time management. It was important to note that agendas that were not reflecting on the programme as adopted by the Programme Committee would not be fit in. If it was possible, the Committee should submit the monthly framework which would found expression in the broader body of the programme of Parliament, and once there every Thursday the detail should be submitted to the office so that by Monday when the Technical Committee met all those things were built in so that by Wednesday the programme was adopted for two weeks.

The Chairperson noted that Mr Tau had seconded the suggestion by Mr Mlenzana. She also suggested that Sentech should fly to the Eastern Cape for its briefing to the Committee during the oversight visit, and not be left outside of that process.

Mr H Groenewald, (DA, North West) asked if the Committee was still going to Port Elizabeth for the whole week of the 16-19 August or they were going to split the week.

The Chairperson replied that she could not say if the Committee was going for the whole week because itstill had to meet and discuss the issue with the Select Committee on Public Services so as to get an agreement about whether the Committee could use that week for Free State and the following week for Eastern Cape.

Mr Tau suggested that the two Committees should go together on the oversight visit to the Eastern Cape.

The Chairperson replied that this matter would be discussed with the Select Committee on Public Services.

Mr M Jacobs (ANC; Free State) pointed out that the Committee during the week of the 16-19 the Whips would be in India, and therefore, both Whips of the Committees would not be part of the Oversight Visit to Coega.

The Chairperson thanked Mr Jacobs for that information and noted that this matter would be resolved before the whips departed for India.

Mr Mlenzana moved the adoption of the Programme

Mr Groenewald seconded the move.

The Programme was adopted by the Committee.

Report on the Oversight Visit to Mitchells Plain
Mr Mlenzana moved for the adoption of the report.

Mr Tau seconded the move.

The Committee adopted the report without amendments.

Other matters
Consideration of the Minutes dated 22 June 2011 and the Fourth Term Draft Committee Programme were postponed to the following week.

The meeting was adjourned.