Appointment of a member to serve on the Interim SABC Board: discussion postponed; Committee Report on oversight visit to Mpumalanga

Meeting report

The Chairperson welcomed the Members of the Committee. He said that there were three items on the agenda - this included a discussion on the appointment of a member to serve on the Interim SABC Board, consideration of a report on Mpumalanga oversight visit and outstanding minutes.

Appointment of a member to serve on the Interim SABC Board
The Chairperson reminded Members that the Committee had received legal opinion that the vacancy caused by the departure of Dr Iraj Abedian had to be filled. He was not sure what the parties had decided in this regard. He asked the Members from the various parties to present what their parties had done.

Ms A Muthambi (ANC) said that the ANC was not yet ready and did not yet have a name for proposal. She suggested that the ANC should be given time to consult and come back with a proposal at the next meeting.

Ms M Shinn (DA) said that the DA also did not have a name at this point.

Ms L Van de Merwe (IFP) said that the IFP had a name which it intended to propose to the Committee but the party needed time to confirm with the individual about the appointment. She added that the IFP agreed to the postponement of the discussions by the Committee. 
The Chairperson said that the Committee agreed to the postponement so the item was going to be discussed at the next meeting.

Committee Report on the Mpumalanga Oversight visit
The Chairperson said that the Committee was going to go through the report page-by-page. He then presented the report to the Committee for consideration.

Ms Shinn proposed some grammatical corrections to the report. On page 4, she proposed that printers and photocopiers should not be considered as computers. In the section under consideration, there was a request from the Universal Service and Access Agency of South Africa (USAASA) Telecenter for 10 computers. In the report, the Committee Secretary had written that there was a request for 10 computers, photocopiers and printers. She insisted that the request was only for 10 computers and there was a separate request for photocopiers and printers.

Ms Muthambi said that the concerns raised by Ms Shinn were just an issue of semantics which could be handled by the Committee Secretary.

Ms Shin proposed further grammatical corrections to the report.

Mr G Schneemann (ANC) said that in the overview of the section on the Sabie post office, he proposed that the phrase “Tourism Town” should be replaced. There was nothing like a “Tourism Town” so he proposed that it should rather read that the town of Sabie was characterised by high levels of tourism.

Ms Shinn referred to In section 14.1 and said that the word trench should be changed to tranche as it was referring to an installment of payment. On the review of the KaNyamazane post office, she proposed further grammatical corrections. The report had to be consistent in its spelling of KaNyamazane as it had been spelled differently in other sections.

The Chairperson said that the report was a reflection of three days’ work by the Committee.

Ms S Tsebe moved for the adoption of the report with amendments. The motion was seconded by Ms Van der Merwe.

The report was adopted with amendments.

Outstanding Committee Minutes
The Chairperson said that there was a batch of minutes that needed to be considered from as far back as 2012. The Committee was going to start from the most recent minutes and proceed backwards. He said that the Committee was going to go through the minutes page-by-page.

The Chairperson presented to the Committee its outstanding minutes. The Committee proceeded to adopt the minutes from the following dates:
7 May 2013 (Adopted without amendments)
23 April 2013 (Adopted without amendments)
17 April 2013 (Adopted without amendments)
16 April 2013 (Adopted without amendments).

On the minutes of the 27 March 2013, Mr Schneemann said that he was out of the country and there was an apology submitted on his behalf. He proposed that the minutes should reflect the apology. The minutes of 27 March 2013 was adopted with that correction.

The Committee continued with the adoption of the minutes of the following dates:
26 March 2013 (Adopted without amendments)
20 March 2013 (Adopted without amendments)
19 March 2013 (Adopted without amendments)
15 March 2013 (Adopted without amendments)
5 March 2013 (Adopted without amendments)
19 February 2013 (Adopted without amendments)
21 November 2012 (Adopted without amendments)
20 November 2012 (Adopted without amendments)
15 November 2012 (Adopted without amendments)
13 November 2012 (Adopted without amendments)
6 November 2012 (Adopted without amendments);
22 October 2012 (Adopted without amendments)
16 October 2012 (Adopted without amendments)

Ms R Morouta (ANC) asked if the format of the writing of the minutes with the stating of members names was the approved parliamentary format and standard.

The Chairperson asked the Committee Secretary to respond.

Mr Thembinkosi Ngoma, Committee Secretary, said that he only wrote the names of members when there were very sensitive issues discussed which had the potential to be disputed. On normal days and during normal presentations, the names of members were not listed.

Ms Van de Merwe asked why there was a star besides the names of some members.

The Chairperson said that the star indicated alternate members.

The meeting was adjourned.