Minister of Communications & Department's on its 2012/13 Third Quarter Performance Report

Meeting report

The Chairperson informed the Committee that from the African National Congress (ANC) side, Ms A Muthambi (ANC) was appointed as the Whip of the study group of the ANC given Mr G Schneemann’s many responsibilities. Ms Muthambi would be leading the ANC component in Portfolio Committee meetings in articulating the position and aspirations of the ANC in terms of representing the broader South African people.
 

Minister's briefing
The Minister of Communications, Ms Dina Pule, lead the delegation from the Department of Communications (DoC). In her introductory remarks, she acknowledged the presence of the heads of the state-owned enterprises and members from the private sector.

The Minister said that the National Development Plan (NDP) was clear on the kind of society envisioned in 2030. The NDP stated that by 2030 the government would make extensive use of information and communications technology (ICT) to engage with and to provide services to citizens. All South Africans would be able to use core ICT services in addition to enjoying a wide range of entertainment, information and education services. She added that the Department had already started implementing what was contained in the NDP. The ICT sector was being co-ordinated by Strategic Infrastructure Project (SIP) 15 detailing plans and progress towards the roll-out of broadband and the implementation of digital migration.

The Minister said that the DoC had identified five top strategic priorities for the upcoming Medium-Term Expenditure Framework. These were broadband, broadcasting digital migration, e-skills, Postbank and ICT Policy review. The other key priority areas were; public and community broadcasting, ICT research, Radio Frequency Spectrum; and cyber security.

In terms of broadband, the Minister said that the DoC would be focusing on finalising the Broadband Policy and Strategy to facilitate the deployment of Broadband backbone and access infrastructure especially in rural and underserved areas, with specific focus on public facilities. She added that with regard to Broadcasting Digital Migration (BDM), the DoC acknowledged the current challenges affecting specific facets of the BDM value chain, which it was addressing. Over the short-term, priority would be given to, amongst others, expanding national Digital Terrestrial Television (DTT) and satellite coverage, allocations of subsidies for set-top-boxes (STBs), STB installer training as well as provision of technical user-support. To this end, Sentech had confirmed to the Minister that in terms of the signal distribution, South Africa would be at 80% by the end of March 2013 and that by the end of 2013, the signal distribution would be at 84%, something she said would be very helpful in terms of rolling out DTT. The remaining 16% would be covered by satellite.

On ICT Policy Review, the Minister said that an ICT Policy Review panel had been appointed and that it had started work. It would look into events such as those led to the dissolution of the South African Broadcasting Corporation board. The ICT review report would lead to the drafting of a Green Paper and consequently a White Paper on National Integrated ICT policy, which would inform the drafting of the National ICT Bill.

Under Postbank, the Minister said that the DoC had met with the board of Postbank and that work was in progress on resolving the challenges that had were delaying its corporatisation. The Postbank played a crucial role in providing financial services to targeted segments of the population, particularly rural and under-serviced communities. The DoC in the short to medium term would prioritise the implementation of the Postbank Act with specific focus on, among others, incorporating the Postbank Company into a separate legal entity and processing the application for a banking license.

In terms of e-skills, the Minister said that in order to address the current e-skills gaps in the country, in the short term, the DoC would prioritise the establishment of a Single Integrated Entity for e-skills through the collaboration of the e-skills Institute, National Electronic Media Institute of South Africa (NEMISA) and Information Security South Africa (ISSA). Over the short to medium term, she said that the newly established Single Integrated Entity for e-skills would focus on development of the National e-skills Development Plan and would implement a range of e-skills initiatives aimed at increasing the e-skills capacity across government, business, education, civil society and organised labour.

On the other key priorities, the Minister said that in terms of Public and Community Broadcasting, over the short to medium term, the DoC would focus on completing the Public Broadcasting Policy review towards the development of a Position Paper which would inform the Public Broadcasting (SABC) Bill and Act. In terms of Community Broadcasting, the DoC intended in the short term to finalise the Community Broadcasting Support Strategy and commence with immediate implementation after approval.

The Minister said that concerning ICT Research, Programme 3 of the DoC, Policy Research and Capacity Building would have a specific research focus, which would entail the development and implementation of a focused Research Programme aimed at supporting priority policies. Attention would be given to the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) thematic areas aligned to government priorities, publishing or revised e-Barometer indicators as well as the development sector of the International Telecommunication Union ITU-D guidelines on Green ICTs.

In terms of the Radio Frequency Spectrum, the Minister said that the Department’s immediate focus would largely be on reviewing the current Radio Frequency Plan, in consultation with the Independent Communications Authority of South Africa (ICASA), taking into account the decisions of the World Radio Communication Conference (WRC-12) and the outcomes of the recent spectrum audit. Specific emphasis would be given to the spectrum requirements for security services. Focus would also be given to issuing Policy Directions on the exploitation of the Digital Dividend to support ICT infrastructure and services.

The Minister said that following the approval of the Cybersecurity Policy Framework, immediate focus would be on the establishment of the Cybersecurity Hub in support of a secure broadband infrastructure. The DoC would also work towards the development of a Virtual Cybersecurity Hub.

Discussion
Mr A Steyn (DA) asked the Minister to update the Committee on the situation regarding the suspension of the Director General.

The Minister in response said that the issue of the Director General was handled at the level of the Department of Public Service and Administration (DPSA). There was a decision that had been taken at the Executive level in relation to all senior managers from DDG to DG level and when there are issues, these are handed over to Minister Lindiwe Sisulu. She added that she would be meeting the Public Service Commission to take it through what had happened from the point of taking over until the matter was handed over to Minister Sisulu.

2012/13 Third Quarter Organisational Performance
Mr Gift Buthelezi, DoC Acting Director-General, and also the DoC Deputy Director-General: ICT International Affairs and Trade, said that the presentation would cover the DoC’s performance for the period 01 October to 31 December 2012 focusing on: significant Quarter 3 achievements; Quarter 3 performance against each 2012/13 target as identified in the 2012-2013 Annual Performance Plan; status of progress per quarter 3 target (achieved, delayed or no progress); reasons for delays or no progress; and financial performance as at 31 December 2012.

The Acting DG said that with regards to the Universal Postal Union (UPU) World Postal Congress elections, the Department successfully implemented a lobby campaign which led to South Africa's election for the first time to the Council of Administration (CA), and re-election to the Postal Operations Council (POC).  South Africa had the highest number of votes for the CA and the second highest for POC out of all the African countries.  In addition, South Africa was appointed to chair key committees in both the CA and POC and as a member of the UPU Bureau. 

The Acting DG further said that a service provider had been appointed for Broadcasting Digital Migration (BDM) awareness and the print and broadcast adverts had commenced. He added that although only planned for Quarter 3, the lending, borrowing and investment policies of the Postbank were introduced to Parliament in Quarter 2 – this process was still ongoing.

The ICT Policy Review Panel members were appointed by the Minister and the implementation of Computer Security Incident Response Team (CSIRT) had commenced and both the Information Security and Physical Security assessments were conducted by State Security Agency and SAPS respectively. He added that National Broadband Policy amendments were undertaken and a draft broadband strategy developed. Furthermore, a draft Broadband implementation plan was developed as part of SIP 15. 3 Funding options were also developed for Broadband and on this note he added that the funding from the National Treasury was far below was expected on broadband.

In term of participation of unemployed youth in the Information Society and Development (ISAD) Programme, 140 young people were deployed in schools and education facilities in the Eastern Cape, Free State, Mpumalanga and North West and with regards to developing e-Skills Courseware, the final National e-Skills Curriculum Development Framework and Instructional Design Guideline was developed in addition to the conclusion of the development of the e-Skills Aggregation Monitoring and Evaluation mechanism.

Mr Themba Phiri, DoC Deputy Director-General: ICT Policy, speaking on ICT Policy Development said that the Green paper on ICT Policy had not been developed because the DoC changed strategy requiring a thorough policy making process that led to the appointment of the ICT Policy Review Panel. The ICT Policy Review Panel would develop an ICT Policy Review Report. Delays in the development of a Green paper had also been brought about by the issuance of a tender to appoint the service provider to develop and ICT Policy Review Report.

In terms of the Postbank, Mr Phiri added that the Postbank Act was implemented and monitored following its alignment with the Banks Act and that the Postbank Borrowing Policy had also been introduced to Parliament.  Development of the Postbank Lending Policy and the Postbank Investment Policy were also achieved in Quarter 2 despite the fact that this was a Quarter 3 target. He added that the DoC continued to monitor the Postbank and that a monitoring report on the implementation of the Postbank Act had been produced and presented to the Ministers’ Bilateral with the South African Post Office (SAPO) Board.

In terms of the Electronic Communications Amendment, Mr Phiri said that the DoC had experienced some delays due the requirement of a Regulatory Impact Assessment Report and the fact that the extended consultation period had taken longer than envisaged. He added that there was also no substantial progress made in Quarter 3 regarding the submission of the ICASA Amendment Bill to Cabinet because the extended consultation period took longer than envisaged because there was a need for participation from members of the public.

With regard to the Broadcasting Services Policy, Mr Phiri said that the draft Broadcasting Services report was developed and incorporated into the comprehensive ICT Policy Review process. He however added that the Post and Telecommunications-related Matters Amendment Bill that was supposed to be submitted to Cabinet for approval was delayed because it had to be gazetted for public consultation and this had brought about the delays.

Mr Phiri informed the Committee that the position paper on Community Television support had been developed and workshopped with stakeholders. There was also an achievement in the production of a monitoring report on the implementation of the Scheme for Ownership Support (SoS). A Draft Qualifying Criteria for scheme for ownership support for poor TV-owning households was gazetted.

A monitoring report that was expected to be produced on the implementation of the STB Manufacturing Sector Development Strategy was delayed due to a court case that was brought against the DoC by e Tv regarding management of STB control mechanism. However, recommendations for the appointment of the Production Advisory Body were submitted to Cabinet for approval.

Mr Jabu Radebe, DoC Acting DDG: ICT Infrastructure Development, said that DoC was expected to have submitted to Cabinet for approval an ECT Amendment Bill but that this was not achieved due to delays in securing services of a legal specialist. The Bill had been gazetted for public comments with 7 December 2012 as the closing date for comments.

In terms of the Cybersecurity Hub, Mr Radebe said that the issue on this was the operationalisation of the National Cybersecurity Advisory Council (NCAC). The NCAC would be responsible for advising the Minister on policy and technical issues with regards to cybersecurity.  A minute was submitted for approval of the recommended candidates. A draft Cybersecurity Awareness Strategy had been completed but not yet implemented because of a need for internal consultation. He however noted that the establishment of a Cybersecurity Hub had been concluded in line with project plan. Physical and information security assessments were conducted with the help of the Police.

Mr Radebe said that the National Broadband Policy had been amended and draft broadband strategy developed. Draft Broadband implementation plan had been developed as part of SIP 15 There was however a delay in the implementation due to a lack of human resources. In terms of the Broadband Infrastructure Funding Model, he said that three options had been developed but that the delay in the approval was due to a lack of resources. He further informed the Committee that there had been no progress on the Quarter 3 target of implementation of the various interventions by the relevant stakeholders because the implementation plan had not yet been finalised.

Reporting on further delays, Mr Radebe said that Geographic Information Systems (GIS) mapping had been concluded but that there were capacity constraints that caused the delay of the implementation. In terms of memoranda of understanding with stakeholders that were to be signed to implement identified mechanisms/interventions, there had been no progress because the strategy and implementation plan was still under development.

In terms of the Quarter 3 target of 35% connectivity of schools to be monitored as per the implementation plan, Mr Radebe said that 54% of identified schools had been connected in terms of the Wide Area Network (WAN) installation and the implementation monitored. With regards to the implementation of the DTT rollout facilitated and managed according to the Sentech rollout plan, 61% coverage rollout remained static due to change in approach to network rollout and the reason for this was that the remainder of the population was to be covered by satellite.

Mr Radebe said that in terms of the 2012/13 target of current National Radio Frequency Spectrum Plan and usage validated from 9 kHz to 500MHz, the Quarter 3 target of a second report on fieldwork was approved and signed off by the DoC. The process of data extraction and processing was currently in process and would continue into Quarter 4.

Mr Radebe informed the Committee that there was a delay in assessments of current and future usage of the Ultra High Frequency (UHF) band because the service provider was conducting stakeholder consultations. The meeting with a wide-ranging group of key stakeholders was time consuming. He however added that consultations to ascertain spectrum requirements of security services were held for incorporation in the National Radio Frequency Plan.

With regards to the Presidential National Commission, Mr Phiri said that this had been integrated into the DoC in a branch called Information Society Development and Research. There was no progress in the development an e-Strategy, including Vision 2020, towards transforming South Africa to a knowledge economy because the consultation process was very extensive and required alignment to the Mandate as set out in the Electronic Communication and Transaction (ECT) Act.

The Quarter 3 target of conducting stakeholder consultation on draft ICT Industry Development Strategy was achieved with ICT Small, Medium and Micro Enterprise (SMME) Strategy and uptake and usage strategy developed and presented to TMM. The Quarter 3 target of cultural heritage content to be collected and uploaded in KwaZulu-Natal (KZN), North-West, Limpopo and Eastern Cape was delayed due to funding challenges in addition to the KZN documentary being withdrawn.

There was an achievement in terms of military veteran content that was collected and uploaded on the digital repository. 24 interviews were done in Limpopo and Gauteng province; a pilot digital versatile disk (DVD) for the digitisation programme with demonstration of G3 software system to capture information of military veterans was also produced in addition to 654 registrations that were uploaded on the database.
 

The Committee was informed that no progress had been made on the recruitment of suitable candidates for training in animation due to lack of funding to kick-start the project. The Committee was further informed that there had been delay in the development of a support programme for creative industry and so the implementation could not be achieved in the Quarter 3.

Mr Phiri, in terms of the education content to be uploaded on the portal for mobile access, said that this had been delayed because the Department of Basic Education preferred the workbook to be changed from a physical book into an electronic format. On a positive note, in terms of production of a local and digital content development strategy implementation monitoring report, the DoC was monitoring the implementation of policy through a number of initiatives.

With regard to the ICT rural development strategy to be implemented through facilitating ICT interventions in the 61 rural sites/under-services areas through the utilisation of green technologies where viable, Mr Phiri said that the business plans for the 61 rural sites had been developed but the budget had not been approved causing a delay of this target.

Dr Harold Wesso, DoC Deputy Director-General: e-Skills Institute, said that the development of the e-Skills aggregation monitoring and evaluation mechanism had been achieved. The third research colloquium was also held at the University of the Western Cape (UWC) on 26 October 2012 with a theme that focused on Creative Industries and new skills. He also informed the Committee that Virtual network for knowledge transfer was established and that draft terms of reference for the nation-wide network had been developed but complexity of network required managed services component for all network centres.
With regards to e-Commerce platform for the Arts and Craft sector, Mr Phiri said that the e-commerce workshop was held on 11 December 2012 and the content for SMMEs in Tourism, Arts and Craft was populated in line with the milestone. This was meant to promote online trading by small businesses of their products – work was ongoing with the assistance of the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI). He however informed the Committee that there had been a delay in the programme to encourage the use of ICTs within Government and in particular specific municipalities. The delay was due to the South African Local Government Association (SALGA)’s consultation on behalf of municipalities and working with the incorrect people from the beginning.

The Committee was informed that participation of unemployed youth in the ISAD programme had been facilitated by DoC. 140 young people had been deployed in and deduction facilities in Eastern Cape, Free State, Mpumalanga and North West; monthly reports were being received through the provincial co-ordinators; and that stipends were also being paid for the entire course.

Mr Phiri informed the Committee that there was a delay in updating the indicators in terms of the millennium development goals and the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS). The delay was due to constraints in terms of administrative support and human resource capacity. There was however achievement in the development of a concept document with regards to ICT research to determine baseline and impact in prioritised sectors and there was consultation with the Department of Science and Technology (DST) and the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR).

The Committee was informed that there had been no progress on the stakeholder consultation on the draft ICT sector scenario planning report due to non-approval of tender by the DBAC. An ICT Research and Innovation Framework had been developed following a workshop on the ICT Research Council document held on 7 November 2012.

Mr Phiri informed the Committee that there was achievement of the implementation and monitoring of the action lines stemming from the ICT indaba with the relevant initiatives such as broadband being implemented by the respective branches. With regards to the impact of ICT programmes on job creation, there was a development of Departmental Quarterly report on job creation through the implementation of relevant ICT projects. To this end 30 645 jobs were created.

Dr Wesso informed the Committee that, a final national e-skills curriculum development framework and instructional design guideline was developed and updated at the Hub co-ordination meeting of 12 December 2012. In terms of the National e-Skills Plan of Action (NeSPA) 2012, he said that the second e-Skills Summit was hosted from 22-25 October in Cape Town and was attended by 350 national and international delegates and that the draft NeSPA document was developed by the end of December 2012. There was however budget shortfalls for implementation of the recommendations of the NeSPA.

The Chairperson advised the DoC to address the Committee on the delayed targets and not those that had been achieved.

Mr Jim Paterson, DoC Director: Multilateral Affairs informed the Committee that there was a delay in the implementation of the South Africa-European Union (SA-EU) work programme in relevant branches and institutions due to limited resources. The submission on Zulu domain name to ICANN to prevent private companies from utilising the domain name had been some of the anticipated goals to be achieved. 

In terms of the draft IBSA e-Readiness tool for country consultation, there had been no progress due to challenges of human resource that were yet to be addressed. The Committee was further informed that there was no progress on the Quarter 3 target establishing a new sub- sub-working group on Free Open Source Software (FOSS) that was to be presented at the IBSA Ministerial Commission for ratification because the working group meeting could not be held due to misalignment of schedules between stakeholders and the hosting party. There was also a delay in training programmes with selected countries of the South because a follow-up meeting had been scheduled for end of February 2013 to finalise the scope of request.

Mr Paterson informed the Committee that there was no progress on the SA/Brazil memorandum of understanding on ICTs due to capacity problems and the need to clarify with the Department of International Relations and Co-operation (DIRCO) if a Presidential minute could be submitted without a specific date of signature. This was the same case for the preparations for signing of the SA/India Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) on ICTs. The Committee was also informed that there was no progress in terms of the first draft digital framework that was to be submitted to India for concurrence because the project experienced difficulties and scheduling of resources for much of 2012.

Mr Paterson informed the Committee that there was a delay in the endorsement by the President of the final draft of the SA/Mexico MOU due to the meeting being postponed a number of times. There was also no progress made on the proposal for alternative financial support for the expansion of the INSPIRE programme due to human resources capacity constraints. In terms of the draft MOUs submitted for legal scrutiny by the state law advisors, he said that no progress had been made due to challenges of scheduling meetings with Department of International Relations and Co-operation (DIRCO) counterparts.

With regards to the initial proposal for Official Development Assistance (ODA) funding, the Committee was informed that there was no progress because this particular project now resided with Trade Chief Directorate. He also informed the Committee that there was a delay in the hosting of the ICT Week and International Exhibition because there was still progress with meeting SMME and advising on this and would refer them to the relevant institutions on their projects that required funding or advice.

Mr Sam Vilakazi, DoC Deputy Director-General: Administration, speaking on the delayed targets in Finance and ICT Enterprise Development, said that there was delay in implementation of ICT SMME due to pressure on the fiscal that was making it hard to secure the required funding. There were also capacity constraints within the SMME unit that had delayed the delivery of export readiness interventions to the 15 SMMEs.

Mr Vilakazi informed the Committee that there were unanticipated delays in the overall migration process that were hampering the project progress (development plan to build the capacity of identified SMMEs). This was dependent on the appointment of the STB manufacturers. The appointment of preferred SMME was also dependent on the appointment of the manufacturers. Further delays were in the areas of State-owned Enterprises (SOEs) late submissions not allowing for sufficient time for DoC internal processes in terms of the Estimate of the National Expenditure; meetings held with the executive management of SOEs had also caused delays in the finalisation of analysis of quarter reports against corporate/strategic plans.

In terms of the development of the shareholder compacts, the Committee was informed that there was a delay caused by SOEs that were in the process of developing their corporate plans and shareholder compacts and with regards to entities engaged on alignment of governance priorities with draft strategic/corporate plans, he said that the delay in the delivery of this target was attributed to SAPO having held its workshop in January 2013.

On Governance and Administration, Mr Vilakazi said that there was a delay on the effective running of the SOE forum because two meetings could not take place as expected due to other priority events. The same reason affected the effective functioning of the ISAD Inter-Governmental Relations Forum (IGRF) technical committee. He added that there was also a delay in three additional inter-branch committee meetings that were supposed to take place due to the non-availability of committee members.

Mr Vilakazi informed the Committee that there was no progress in terms of the beneficiaries of the ICT Tools programme because of none approval of the concept paper. He added that there was delay on service deployment for the second intake of e-Cadres some colleges had delayed in starting with the training as had been planned. The implementation of the exit strategy for the e-Cadre programme was also affected by a lack of response on the revised concept paper. Responses were being awaited from colleges in terms of the ICDL training for the third intake of e-Cadres.
 

The Committee was also informed that there was a delay in the implementation of Broadcasting Ambassadors National Youth Service programme because DoC was awaiting SABC’s feedback on the draft as they were the main partner for the programme.

Mr Vilakazi said that there was delay in the implementation of the ICT Accessibility Programme due to the late launch of the Disability and ICT Strategy in November 2012. He added that no substantial progress had been made on a concept paper on access to broadcasting programme due the launch of the strategy in November that resulted in the delay of the concept paper being approved. The Committee was further informed that gender equity audit within SOEs had been delayed because the DoC was waiting for responses from Sentech, NEMISA, Telkom and ICASA.

In terms of the Departmental Service Delivery Improvement Plan, Service Standards, Service Charter, Mr Vilakazi said that although the Departmental Service Delivery Improvement Plan had been finalised, there were delays in the appointment of the service provider – this also affected the implementation of the Leadership Development programme.

The Committee was informed that the movement of the function of re-engineering from DGO to human resources (HR) had caused delays in the mapping and re-engineering of identified business processes and standard operating procedures. He further informed the Committee that the approved migration plan target was facing a delay because the employees were being prevented by unions from participating in the process.

Mr Farhad Osman, Chief Director: Strategic Planning and Monitoring in terms of addressing quarterly targets where there had been delays or no/ minimal progress said that the DoC viewed targets where there was no to minimal progress in a very serious light and had in place several measures to address them accordingly.

Mr Osman said that the DoC had in place a fully functional Organisational Performance Assessment Board, which met at the end of every quarter to evaluate performance. Specific attention was given to addressing such quarterly targets where specific recommendations were made for urgent action by the relevant DDG. He added that such targets informed the agenda of management meetings and were specifically focused on performance reporting.

Mr Osman informed the Committee that evidence against all reported achievements were collected and analysed on a quarterly basis and submitted accordingly to the Auditor General during the audit of performance information. Furthermore, the DoC submitted all Quarterly reports to the National Treasury and the Department of Performance Monitoring and Evaluation (DPME) for noting. Over and above-project specific challenges, cross-cutting issues such as HR capacity constraints and budgetary constraints were being addressed.

In giving the Financial Report as at 31 December 2012, Mr Vilakazi said that spending in the DoC was in line with the deliverables. The monitoring of expenditure also meant that there was no dumping or rather spending money at the tail end. The overall expenditure as at 31 December was at 71% out of a budget of R 1.6 billion with the actual expenditure at R1.1 billion.

Mr Vilakazi said that the budget for Quarter 3 was R429 million and the actual R407 million translating into a budget of 26% achieving 24.6% and resulting in a variance of 1.4%.
 

With a question session to the President following later on, the Committee Members proposed that the questions to the DoC concerning the Third Quarter Performance be put on hold until the next meeting.
The Chairperson said that the DoC had to justify its existence. For instance, if the DoC were to close down would the sector feel the impact?

The meeting was adjourned.