Postponement of meeting with Minister of Economic Development and the Industrial Development Corporation

Meeting report

Postponement of meeting with Minister of Economic Development and the Industrial Development Corporation (IDC)
The Chairperson stated that the Minister of Economic Development (the Minister) would not be attending the meeting as he would be addressing the President and Premiers Forum in Johannesburg on the same day. The Minister apologised for this and requested that the meeting be rescheduled to a later date. In addition, the IDC had also requested a postponement and asked that its presentation be rearranged for the same day the Minister’s briefing. The IDCs presentation would respond to the State of the Nation Address and provide information, on a provincial level, on how it had met its targets for the green economy.

Second Term Committee Programme
The Chairperson asked the Committee to briefly consider the programme for the second term.

The Chairperson proposed that the Committee call the Public Works Department, the South African Local Government Association to Parliament on Tuesday, 24 April to brief the Committee on the energy efficiency initiatives they were undertaking. He said that Department of Economic Development’s Strategic Plan and Budget Vote could be shifted to a later date or be presented while the Committee was on an oversight visit. He asked Members to propose which provinces should be visited from 8-11 May.

Mr K Sinclair (COPE; Northern Cape) proposed the Northern Cape as there were many alternative energy projects taking place there, the Square Kilometre Array announcement would be taking place on 4 April and there was the still important issue of asbestosis to consider.  As there were no other proposals, this proposal was adopted.

The Chairperson said that the Sishen- Saldanha rail infrastructure project, the expansion of Kumba’s mining operations in the province and the expansion of the solar park’s output to 5000MW were all reasons this would be a good province to visit.
Adoption of Outstanding minutes
The minutes of the meetings held on the 16-18 August 2011 were adopted with the addition of the recommendation that the Committee emphasised that oversight visits had to be undertaken. The minutes of the meetings held on the 30 August, 18 October, 1, 15 and 22 November were adopted. The minutes of the meeting of 2 November needed to include the reference that Transnet’s storage holding facilities should be opened up to provide liquid petroleum gas storage capacity.

Adoption of Draft Reports
The draft reports on the study tour to India and oversight visit to Mpumalanga were tabled for adoption. In respect of the former, the Chairperson said most of the findings in the draft report referred to international relations and not much on economic development.

Mr Sinclair proposed that the draft reports be put on the agenda of the next meeting for adoption to allow time to flesh out the findings and recommendations of the report and contextualise the Memorandum of Understandings. After discussion, the reports were accepted with the proviso that the changes as proposed by Mr Sinclair be discussed with the Select Committee on Trade and International Relations in a joint meeting.

Announcements
The Chairperson announced that the whole Committee with the exception of Ms M Dikgale (ANC; Limpopo) and Mr J Gunda (ID; Northern Cape) would be attending the Energy Indaba to be held on 15-16 June.

The Committee had also received an invitation to attend the National Energy Integration Plan to be held in Johannesburg on 29-30 March but this trip still needed to be approved.

The meeting was adjourned.