Economic Development Budgetary Review and Recommendations Report

Meeting report

Mr Pilate Gwebu, Committee Secretary read apologies from Mr B Holomisa and Mr N Gcwabaza. He also noted that Mr S Marais would be late for the meeting.

Economic Development Budgetary Review and Recommendations Report
The Chairperson informed Members that the draft report in front of them had been tabled at the previous meeting. The Committee would consider the report page by page and deliberate on its content before adopting it.

Mr Z Ntuli (ANCsought clarity on whether the Committee would correct the grammar in the report or focus on the content.

The Chairperson replied that the Committee should deal with both matters simultaneously. She added that grammatical mistakes could sometimes confuse and interrupt the content of a report.

Mr X Mabasa (ANC) agreed with the Chairperson and requested the Committee to note all changes so that they could be incorporated in the revised report.

The Chairperson noted that the Committee had no Content Adviser whilst other Committees had one. This issue had been raised with the Speaker and was currently receiving attention. However, this meant that in the meantime the Committee Secretary would have to work very hard in seeing that reports were properly prepared for the Committee. She also advised the Committee Secretary to record the proceedings so as to ensure that everything was captured and nothing was left out. The Committee had undertaken oversight visits to three Provinces- which included Eastern Cape, Free State and Gauteng- these needed to be noted in the report.

The Chairperson asked if Members were satisfied with the way the impact of the Committee’s oversight on the Department was constructed in the report.

Mr Mabasa responded that he would support it if it did not clash with the guidelines.

Mr S Ngonyama (COPE) noted that fundamentally the Committee had visited three Provinces and that was not stated in the report and that would do disservice not only to the Committee but also to the Province that was not mentioned in the report. The Committee was exposed to many things during the oversight visits including what happened immediately after they left Eastern Cape where at Volkswagen in East London, 792 people were retrenched. Therefore, they needed as a Committee to highlight those issues that came up in those oversight visits in the report. Even with their recommendations they needed to highlight those issues because issues around auto industry which were currently being responded to should be included in the recommendations of the department and recommendations from South African Micro-Finance Apex Fund (SAMAF).

The Chairperson noted that the structure of the report should be reorganised so that it was clearer. In terms of the expenditure report, she noted that there were issues that had not been included like the issue of accommodation which had been sharply raised by the Department and also by the entities. The Committee had also asked the Department to look at ways of reducing its dependency on the Department of Trade Industry (DTI) with regard to the rates issue. This observation had not been captured in the report. The issue that was raised in the report was the lack of relevant skills which might not be the only reason because the other reason might be that people were not feeling comfortable since there was lack of office space in the department. And when the Committee had went to the departmental offices in Pretoria, it had seen how senior managers and deputy directors were cramped in small offices, some with open offices and it was difficult to work in such an environment.

The Committee was therefore conscious about that issue although it did not affect the entities that much but the Competition Commission complained about office space and to some extent the Competition Tribunal also complained. Khula did not complain but SAMAF complained about office space and she was talking in relation to the filling of posts because they wanted to employ people but there was no office space for them. There were senior managers who had resigned after a month or two having joined the department and there was no exit report which specifically explained the reasons for their departure. In the absence of the exit report the Human Resources Manager was unable to explain the reasons for those resignations and the exit report was something the HR department was working on. It was therefore important to highlight the issue of accommodation in terms of the expenditure report because it addressed various issues which included the non filling of posts, resignations and the general working conditions within the Department.

Dr P Rabie (DA) noted that the Committee needed to commit little bit further in terms of knowing how the Department was going to alleviate the issue of accommodation or were they going to lease additional accommodation.

The Chairperson reminded the Committee that when the Director-General had briefed the Committee he stated that the DTI was moving out the newly established Commission but Members were not satisfied with that arrangement because there were still few offices for the Department to occupy and, they needed a permanent solution to the problem of accommodation. And that’s why in the recommendations she had stated that the Department should reduce its dependency on the DTI because it would be a recurring issue and they did not want to hear about the same problem going forward.

The Committee agreed that the BRRR should be sent back to the support staff so that it could be redone and reworked in terms of its grammar and content and, the observations and recommendations should be restructured accordingly before it could be adopted.

The meeting was adjourned.