Independent Electoral Commission Strategic Plan 2013

Meeting report

Independent Electoral Commission: Strategic Plan 2013 – 17 and Annual Performance Plan 2013/14
The Chairperson noted the apology of the Chairperson of the Independent Electoral Commission (IEC), and welcomed the Deputy Chairperson, Mr Terry Tselane.

Mr Tselane noted the apologies of other commissioners who were unable to join the meeting, and introduced the members of the delegation. He then noted that the IEC had told the Committee during a previous meeting that it was busy revising its mission and vision, and the current strategic plan now took into account all the new initiatives. He outlined that the new strategic goals were to achieve pre-eminence in managing elections and referenda, to strengthen electoral democracy, to strengthen cooperative relationships with all political parties, to strengthen institutional excellence and professionalism at all levels, and to strengthen the institutional governance. Many of the Chapter 9 institutions were trying to find new ways of operating within a set structural framework. The IEC had decided to play a more prominent role, particularly at international level. It was currently chairing the SADC Forum on elections and served on various task teams establishing the structures in that body. Most recently, the IEC had given assistance to Madagascar with its elections. One of the Members of the Committee, prior to the start of the meeting, had made reference to a recent workshop that IEC had hosted on electronic voting, and he noted that the majority of Members of this Committee had attended, and this would assist them in understanding and monitoring the procedures in future. IEC was holding an internal workshop on innovation and social media in an attempt to capture the youth and persuade them to participate in elections.

Mr Mosotho Moepa, Chief Electoral Officer, IEC, said that the vision and mission of the IEC had changed from the last strategic plan presentation. The vision was now stated more simply – that IEC should be a pre-eminent leader in electoral democracy. The mission statement encompassed the notion that IEC was an independent constitutional body that managed free and fair elections, of legislative bodies and institutions, through the participation of citizens, political parties and civil society, in deepening electoral democracy. This took the IEC’s mission wider than it had been previously, and would enable the IEC to help in any election processes. The values remained the same, and included impartiality, integrity, accountability transparency, participation, responsiveness and respect. The legislative mandate also remained the same (see attached presentation for full details).

Mr Moepa outlined how the strategic plan, from 2013 to 2017, was drafted, and noted that there would be quarterly reporting. He noted again the five strategic goals, as introduced earlier by Mr Tselane. There were currently about 224 registered political parties and IEC wanted to meet with all of them, especially those not represented in Parliament, to ensure that they were fairly heard and promoted. There were concerns expressed in the past on governance, and the IEC was doing work, at local level in particular, to train and strengthen all staff and to achieve institutional excellence and professionalism at all levels.

He described the goals in more detail. Strategic Goal 1was to achieve pre-eminence in the area of managing elections and referenda. This encompassed a number of sub-goals and he pointed out that the IEC was trying to ensure accessibility and suitability of voting facilities and processes, in order to ensure efficient electoral processes. By-elections were proceeding well. The IEC in all instances had to anticipate the needs of communities, parties and the electorate. There were some difficulties in increasing voter participation in elections, but IEC worked on this through information and education, and also relied on the parties to offer alternative policies to voters and help to educate them also. For every election, the IEC wanted to ensure that results were declared in an uncontested way, and that the elections would be held as mandated. It must ensure that the voters’ roll remained credible, improve compliance with legal prescripts, and continuously improve the legislative framework, by submitting amendments where necessary.

He outlined the indicators and targets (see attached presentation, slide 11). IEC was aiming to raise the number of voting stations to 22 000, compared to the previous 20 000. This would be reported on in the third and fourth quarter. It would be using more schools as voting stations. It aimed to set up a local office in every municipality, and to have ten warehouses to support events. In relation to procurement of electoral materials, he noted that there was a gap that the IEC was trying to fill. It would regularly check the voters’ roll against the population register. For every by-election, there was a timetable, and every one of these timetables had to be certified. IEC was trying to ensure that it was never outside the set period to conduct elections, from date of vacancy. Similarly, it aimed to declare the results within seven days, for national elections, and within three days for by-elections.

The IEC carried out annual legislative reviews, but in this year it would be completing what had been started in the last year.

Strategic Goal 2 was to strengthen electoral democracy, and this was done, amongst others, through continuous education, the research agenda and issuing publications, increasing visibility through proactive consultation, effective communication, facilitating platforms for political dialogue and constantly engaging with the media. Targets were set for events, and the IEC generally aimed to engage with groups comprising a minimum number, to try to reach more people. It was hoping to reach 8 063 groups. It was aiming for 20 stakeholder meetings, opinion pieces or publications in the year. Three research projects were planned, most of which would be shared with the public, although there were some for internal use as well. Media interaction would be done through media releases and reports, and a minimum of 30 releases and 100 interviews were planned. The media analysis reports were done monthly, by a reliable service provider. Fourteen communication platforms were planned, which would range from digital on-line platforms to more traditional methods such as billboards at train stations. IEC had a number of strategic partnership, ranging from traditional leaders, to social groups, and it aimed to inform the whole cross-section of society. It was hoping to hold 46 engagements in the year.

Strategic Goal 3 related to conducting liaison sessions, with political parties at national, provincial and municipal level, and ensuring that the funding for political parties that was received from Parliament was distributed as defined. It aimed to have 2 517 liaison sessions with Party Liaison Committees (PLCs), spread over the whole term, and to conduct 10 training sessions with political parties.

Strategic Goal 4 aimed to strengthen institutional excellence and professionalism. IEC aimed to have excellence at all voting stations, and to build institutional capacity. It aimed to be performance and people centred. One of the sub-programmes in support of this goal related to environmental awareness and compliance, and here Mr Moepa said that IEC had developed policies to look at recycling and preserving the environment, after facing questions as to the amount of paper and ink that it used. It was holding awareness sessions in house that focused on environmental improvements.

Another prime target was to build institutional memory. The Deputy Chairperson had already briefly alluded to the fact, when introducing the team, that many were promoted internally, and this was one way of ensuring that institutional memory was built and enhanced. The IEC was targeting employing 282 000 people for elections, with 16 000 for registration and the remainder for the running of the elections. Some of those trained would then also be used to train others. The number of area managers was also to be increased, to aid with distribution of material at local level, and to ensure good logistics, to 4 277. IEC was to increase the permanent staff, and he described some of the training and other workplace enhancement plans. There would be substantial training in the 4^th quarter. The nature of the business required IEC to hire staff and have full capacity for a temporary period and it tried to ensure that it had sufficient numbers of staff for maximum efficiency. In particular, it was targeting hiring 441 staff. All staff would have performance agreements in place.

Strategic Goal 5 related to institutional governance. In relation to the accounting systems, Mr Moepa mentioned that IEC kept full and proper accounts and sought to achieve unqualified audit reports every year. It was also now focusing on developing more processes to monitor legal compliance, which had become a very important function of the IEC, and these processes were in the course of being approved. IEC was also dealing with the update of the strategic and provincial risk register. It annually reviewed the industrial policy, although it did generally have a good relationship with the unions, but would not take them for granted and would try to maintain this.

IEC regularly reviewed its accommodation contracts and quarterly reviews were conducted on the validity and requirements of the leases and the security contracts.

Information Technology (IT) was fundamental to the whole functioning of the IEC and not only had it designed security and other systems, but it would test the risk regularly. It was satisfied that there were proper systems in place. In relation to governance, he outlined the number of governance committees that were in place over the last few years and said that annual reviews of these were also conducted. Oversight and evaluation was also conducted.

The budget figures, with a breakdown as to what amount would be put to the various programmes, were then briefly outlined (see attached presentation). For 2013, the budget was R1.479 billion, and R254 million was allocated to achieving all objectives for the elections and referenda. This particular amount would rise in the 2014/15 year to R328 million. The budget overall would also rise to R1.5 billion by 2015/16.

Discussion
Mr G McIntosh (COPE) said that he had wondered if the IEC was spending wisely. It had a large budget and he had initially thought, having attended the recent conference that it was quite lavish, with a lot of money expended on accommodation and other arrangements. Having said that, it was an excellent workshop and he had already congratulated the IEC on it, and he also recognised that it was seen as a flagship event. He cautioned, however, that IEC should be careful that it did not “go overboard” on its spending.

Mr Moepa took note of this warning, but assured the Members that the IEC did manage a tight ship on the finances. It tried never to exceed its budget and he assured the Committee that the IEC paid a lot of careful attention to the way it was spending to try to ensure that this happened.

Mr Norman du Plessis, Deputy Chief Electoral Officer, IEC, added that the budget in the years between elections had consistently been below the inflation rate, and he reminded the Committee that the IEC, unlike other institutions, did not calculate its budget on a historical basis, with increases from one year to the next, but in a cyclical way. Overall, the IEC managed to curtail its costs, and efficiencies in ICT and logistics further improved its ability to contain costs.

Mr McIntosh noted that Strategic Goal 2 spoke to research, which was very important, and questioned if all this was done in-house or if there was also work done with strategic partners.

Ms Reinet Taljaard, Commissioner, ICT, said that all the constitutional bodies with a statutory mandate were required to do constant research. The longitudinal studies were done in partnership with the Human Sciences Research Council. The IEC was very interested also in the research being done at the universities, whether or not it directly participated. It did interact with the Brigalia Bam Research Chair at UNISA but also took an interest in what was being done by the van Zyl Slabbert Research Chair at UCT. IEC constantly sought to increase its own understanding of whatever was happening from a political perspective. Academics at the moment were particularly interested in the impact and the role of the “born free” South Africans (born after 1994), who would be participating in the next national elections. IEC was doing its own substantive policy research but research into awareness and attitudes was ongoing all the time.

Mr McIntosh asked who did the media research for the IEC, and who were the independent analysts to whom reference had been made earlier.

Mr Moepa responded that the Media Monitoring Africa provided information every month on how the IEC had been covered in the media, and this was analysed to indicate positive, negative, critical or average reporting. The amount of media coverage was generally very good and this enabled IEC, without paying any advertising costs, to get what was estimated as about R12 million to R20 million of coverage, since the IEC was considered newsworthy.

Mr McIntosh questioned the Strategic Goal 4.3, which was to expand the staff to 441, and he wondered if this figure meant that IEC was trying to replace lost staff, and how it was calculated.

Mr du Plessis explained that the expansion in staff mentioned in the presentation was a temporary increase. The IEC had more than 100 local offices which were staffed by only a single person, and the addition of extra staff for these offices would allow for one member of staff to be out in the field, whilst the other was manning the office.

Mr McIntosh fully accepted the position that IEC was dependent on ICT systems, but questioned why the IEC was planning a complete review of ICT structures in December 2014. He wondered whether it would not make more sense to do this prior to the 2014 elections, and wondered if this review was planned to fall in line with municipal and provincial elections.

Mr du Plessis responded that ICT testing was done during elections, and the reviews that took these test results into account were done after the elections.

Mr M de Freitas (DA) congratulated the IEC on the new vision and mission, as well as the excellent presentation and its continuing good work. He questioned where indicator 1.5.1 was derived from, and whether this related to the population register, and wondered if the figures for registration of voters and participation of voters were a wish list, or based on scientific formulae.

Ms P Petersen-Maduna (ANC) also questioned the figures for participation in the elections, pointing out that the IEC was aiming to have 80% of all registered voters actually cast a vote. She said that the figure for the last elections was only at 60% and wondered if a 20% increase was realistic.

Mr Tselane confirmed that the voters’ roll was checked regularly against the population register.

Mr Sy Mamabolo, Deputy Chief Electoral Officer, IEC, added that historical accounts of voter registrations and participation were drawn for every election and there had been increases in 10% of voter registration over the last two national elections. In addition, he added that the voter turnout in 2009 was actually at 77.9%, whereas the 60% referred to related to the municipal elections, which always attracted a lower voting rate than provincial and national elections. He noted that when comparing the last figures and taking into account the number of young South Africans who had turned 18 and were eligible to vote in 2014, the IEC did not think that the increased target was inappropriate.

Mr McIntosh noted that during one presentation on voting elsewhere, it had been noted that Estonia had had a problem in getting people to come to the voting stations, and he suggested that IEC might like to offer more incentives. He commented that more should be made of voting day as a day to celebrate, particularly for those people who were deprived of the right to vote for so long, and other innovative ideas should be considered.

Mr Tselane agreed that there was merit in giving consideration to alternatives and incentives to try to get people to vote.

Mr de Freitas referred to indicator 2.11, and noted that the IEC wanted to focus on larger groups when running educational events, such as the recent workshops it had held. These had been particularly useful for Members of this Committee, but the reality for the public, particularly in Gauteng, was that people had busy lives and were probably not prepared to sit through lengthy presentations. He hastened to add that he was not attempting to criticise the presentations themselves, but felt that voters needed to receive “nuggets of information”; they were not necessarily interested in what the offices may do, but needed far more basic information, like why there were separate ballots, how to vote, where to vote, and similar issues. He suggested also that modern media and technology instruments should be used, to present the information in a clear and concise way.

Mr de Freitas said that his comments on the indicator 2.4.2 followed up on this. He was pleased to hear that traditional media as well as social media were being used, particularly since the younger people spent more time using their phones than reading the newspapers, or listening to radio news.

Mr Tselane thanked Mr de Freitas for these observations and reiterated that the IEC was moving to using the new media resources. In particular, it aimed to target the young voters by using social media, particularly to encourage those who were not yet on the voters’ roll to register to vote.

Mr Mamabolo also thanked Mr de Freitas for the suggestions on the education campaigns as IEC welcomed suggestions on how to continuously improve its outreach.

Mr de Freitas noted that generally speaking, the IEC staff were well-trained, including the temporary staff, but although they were knowledgeable and well able to deal with the mechanics of the processes, there nonetheless remained problems with political intimidation, by all parties, which could be subtle or overt. The IEC staff were put in a difficult position, as the legalities of what should or should not happen were well known, but perhaps there needed to be more protocols to protect them.

The Chairperson later commented that political intimidation was a serious problem, and during the last elections she had noted a problem in her own constituency, where an IEC official had been “lost” through this very problem. She had tried to take the matter up with the PLCs, and she suggested that the PLCs also needed to be strengthened.

Mr Moepa acknowledged that indeed intimidation was a problem, and the IEC was trying to deal with it through training of staff, with a clear indication of what was and was not allowed.

Mr du Plessis added that one of the requirements currently for a electoral officer was that the person should be at least 30, with ten to twelve years experience, as a younger person who lacked experience would find it more difficult to deal with people questioning decisions and processes. This may improve the situation, but further improvements would evolve over time.

Mr McIntosh quipped that one of the political parties allowed people to join its youth movement up to the age of 35, and perhaps that should be the minimum age.

Mr de Freitas said that whilst he appreciated the presentation, he found the colour scheme difficult to see. He also asked for page numbers to be noted.

Mr Moepa thanked Mr de Freitas for the comment and said that IEC would try to use other colours. Whilst the page numbers were noted on the hard copy, they were not always visible on the screen and he would also correct that.

Ms Petersen-Maduna asked if the IEC had made any arrangements to assist with elections in Zimbabwe, as its assistance there could be significant.

Mr Tselane explained that the IEC participated in other countries at the invitation of their respective electoral commissions or governments and it had not been approached to assist in Zimbabwe. If it was asked to do so, it would certainly try to help, although it would also need to indicate whether it had the capacity, and would indicate how and to what extent it would be able to offer assistance. If the IEC was asked to assist in any other country, it would always inform Parliament.

Ms Petersen-Maduna asked what the civic and educational democracy projects comprised, and where they were conducted.

Mr Mamabolo explained that they were conducted at community level, typically in schools, community halls and similar structures that were easy for the community to access. The IEC wanted to attract a minimum of 20 people, to try to broaden knowledge and understanding. The IEC felt that these kinds of projects still had a role to play in educating the public, although, as previously mentioned, there would be new media used as well to try to reach the broader public.

The Chairperson asked if there was a set policy for disposal of vehicles.

Mr Moepa confirmed that there was and that all disposals were done in accordance with that policy.

The Chairperson noted that the Auditor-General had raised some issues in the last financial year and she hoped that the same issues would not be raised in the next audit. The IEC should be aiming not only for an unqualified, but a completely clean audit.

Mr Tselane answered that after the audit report was received, in each year, the administrative staff were asked to develop a programme of action to deal with all issues raised, and the progress on this would be checked regularly. He had met with the audit committee on the previous day and the queries had been dealt with or were being addressed, to his satisfaction. However, in relation to the request for a clean audit, he said that this may not be possible and asked Mr du Plessis to expand on this.

Mr du Plessis expanded that the interim audit results did not indicate that there would be any serious concerns for the 2012/13 financial year. He noted that IEC had 224 offices, and this alone made it very difficult to try to get an unqualified or clean audit. One of the issues raised in the last financial year was that the IEC had not paid one of its suppliers with 30 days. However, this was done because the supplier had not produced a tax clearance; so the question was with which prescript IEC should have complied. The IEC was striving to achieve a clean audit but he pointed out, in this regard, that the rulings and directives of National Treasury sometimes made this very difficult. For instance, a company wishing to register as a vendor with the IEC had to fill out 14 pages of forms, and many companies, particularly the smaller BEE companies, complained that the procedures were simply too difficult to comply with. In addition, he urged that National Treasury and the Auditor-General perhaps needed to make a clear distinction between different types of “irregular” expenditure, as there was a substantial difference between something that achieved value for money but was marred by a technical problem, and something that in fact caused loss or no value. He noted that a continuing technical problem with the IEC would be revealed over the next few audits. IEC had entered into a lease agreement, and the contract did not state, as National Treasury required, that certain adjudication rules would apply. This technical failure was deemed to make the contract, and therefore the expenditure under that contract, irregular, for the whole duration of the contract. He assured the Committee that the money was being well-spent although not all technical prescripts had been followed.

The Chairperson noted that during the by-elections recently there had been a problem with some parties pasting their posters on top of those of other parties, which seriously hindered some parties, and asked what the role of the PLCs would be in such instances, or whether it was up to the parties to complain.

Mr Moepa said that the placement of posters was a thorny issue. Sometimes, there was simply not enough space, but sometimes there was criminal intent to hinder another party. It was not an issue that the PLCs alone could deal with. The IEC had on occasion asked the security institutions to deal with the issues and it would want incidents to be reported to it. Many cases had been reported on to the police. The most effective solution was where the political parties might be persuaded to agree on how they would deal with the problems and enforce the rules properly themselves. He quoted an incident in which one political party had, for instance, decided that since there was not sufficient space left, it would paste its poster over one of the two posters displayed by another party, believing this to be a fair solution. The IEC would try to assist the police where there was a clear indication that it was a criminal matter.

Ms T Gasebonwe (ANC) asked why international engagements did not appear on this strategic plan, as they had in the past, and also asked where support to other African countries was noted, on both the human resources and budget.

Mr Moepa indicated that the engagement was included in the number of engagements with stakeholders, under objective 2.6.1. The IEC had recently engaged with a delegation from Madagascar, and would be holding meetings with one from Thailand. He pointed out that, in a first for the IEC, the electoral commission from Egypt had recently also visited the IEC and had commented that it had gained significant insight from the way in which IEC was working. The IEC had targeted holding 13 international engagements, but things happened in this field very fast and it was possible that this would be exceeded. The IEC believed that international engagements were an ideal way to entrench democracy beyond its own borders.

The Chairperson commented that the Committee was proud of the work and attitude of the IEC, both in South Africa and internationally, and hoped that it would continue with its positive engagements on the Continent.

The meeting was adjourned.