Third & Fourth Term Committee Programmes; Committee Business

Meeting report

Opening Remarks

The Chairperson welcomed the Members and thanked the Committee Whip for holding the fort in her absence the previous week. The Committee promised management not to have pending reports for such a long time. A commitment was made by support staff that would not happen again, and that prior to meetings the Committee would first consider minutes. This would keep Members abreast of what happened in previous meetings. She proposed that the first 15 minutes of every meeting be dedicated for consideration of minutes. The previous arrangement of dealing with minutes at the end of the meetings had obviously failed. Hopefully, everyone would respect the new arrangement.

The Chairperson highlighted that Ms Aal-Rassul had requested a meeting with the Committee to discuss, among other matters, the pending cooperative agreements between the two countries. The Committee requested support staff to provide Members with the necessary documentation on the agreements, and other meetings that happened between South Africa (SA) and Iraq. The meeting with Ms Aal-Rassul would take place on Thursday morning. She pleaded with Members to avail themselves for the meeting. The Committee Secretary would provide Members with the details of the meeting. Members should consider protocol and arrive on time so as to accord the Ambassador a proper welcoming. The Committee was also supposed to adopt the programmes for the next two terms.

Outstanding Committee Minutes

The Chairperson tabled the outstanding minutes for consideration.

Committee Minutes dated 12, 13 and 26 February

The Chairperson tabled the three minutes for consideration.

The minutes were adopted with minor grammatical changes.

Committee Minutes dated 5 March

The Chairperson referred to page 2 and suggested that the sentence “The number of funding applications approved” be corrected. She asked Members if the sentence made any sense as there was no number indicating how many applications had been approved.

Mr K Mubu (DA) suggested the first sentence be left, but the second one be taken out; the sentence should read “to date Small Enterprise Finance Agency (SEFA) had approved”.

Ms D Tsotetsi (ANC) suggested that the first sentence indicate figures. She suggested a semicolon was necessary to show the numbers that had been approved. She said the minutes needed to be re-worked.

The Chairperson said that the sentence would read better if the suggestion from Member Mubu was effected. The number of applications approved to date for SEFA and KHULA Finance had increased by over 100%. The line ought to read “approvals and disbursement had increased above 100% while direct lending showed the increase of 400%”.

Mr Z Ntuli (ANC) said the intention of the sentence was to indicate that the applications approved would form the baseline.

The Chairperson agreed and said if one talked 100% that would constitute a baseline. There must be something in the absence of that figure.

Ms Noluthando Skaka, Committee Secretary, said that the Department of Economic Development (DED) would assess SEFA on the number of funding applications it had approved.

The Chairperson said the Committee staff should make headings bold. She sought confirmation on whether Members were satisfied with assessing SEFA on the number of approved funding applications.

Committee Minutes dated 12 March

The Chairperson tabled the report for consideration.

Mr Mubu pointed that his initials were incorrectly captured in the minutes.

The Chairperson said she was omitting “matters arising”, and requested that Members deal with the item.

Mr Mubu said talking about matters arising after five months was concerning. He asked what was there to talk about as that was impossible.

The Chairperson disputed that this was an impossible task. She asked if Members had any matters arising. The Committee resolved it would organise a joint meeting with the Select Committee on Appropriations to look at the equitable share formula. Was such a meeting still desirable to Members, she asked?

Members did not respond.

The Chairperson then reminded Members of the Fiscal and Financial Commission (FFC) briefing. The FFC talked about not being satisfied with the allocations formula. The Department had once refused an increase to its allocation. The Committee had wanted to ascertain the intricacies of the allocation formula for the equitable share. She requested Ms Skaka to take the Committee through the paragraph where it discussed the issue.

The Chairperson reminded Members that Gauteng received more money, because it hosted most immigrants in the country. This fact was alluded to by the recent Census results. There also was an issue with people residing in rural areas who struggled to acquired Identity Documents (IDs). But if Members did not recall the issues, there was no need for a joint meeting with the Appropriations Committee. She asked if Members still wanted the meeting.

Mr Mubu said that he doubted if the joint meeting was still necessary because the matter was dealt with a while back.

Mr S Ngonyama (Cope) said although he was not present at the meeting, the issue of illegal immigrants was critical. An eventuality of South Africans protesting or venting anger towards illegal immigrants was possible and undesirable. He requested that the Committee pursue the matter.

The Chairperson asked Ms Skaka to look at all matters arising and bring them to the next meeting of the Committee.

Mr Ngonyama said the matter should be discussed at the next meeting.

Ms Tsotetsi concurred and said based on the explanation the matter deserved to be looked at again.

Minutes dated 19 March

Mr X Mabasa (ANC) noted that on page 5, paragraph 6, that there was an “r” that mistakenly went into the sentence.

Mr M Hlengwa (IFP) said that he was not sure about the comment “it’s my Committee, it’s my minutes”. He asked Ms Skaka to verify the comment.

Mr Ngonyama said the Committee Secretary should be very careful about the errors. These could compromise the integrity of the Committee if the minutes were to land in wrong hands.

Minutes dated 30 April, and 04 June

The minutes were adopted without any changes.

Minutes dated 07 June

Mr Mabasa noted that the word “suspended” be replaced by “postponed”.

Mr Mubu asked why, and said the meeting was opened and adjourned because there was no quorum That means the meeting was closed.

The Chairperson said it was important that postponed was used, because the meeting was adjourned at about 09h45.

Minutes dated 11 June

The minutes were adopted without changes.

Minutes dated 14 August

Mr Mabasa asked if Committee staff needed to rework the minutes.

Another Member said this was a suggestion at a meeting that staff rework the minutes. It was also recommended that before submitting reports to ATC (announcements, tablings and committee reports), documents needed to be thoroughly edited.

Mr Ngonyama asked that the acronym “ATC” be explained to the Committee.

The Chairperson indicated that the Committee also had to adopt its programme.

Third and Fourth Term Committee Programmes

Ms Noluthando Skaka presented the Committee’s programme for the third and fourth term.

The Committee adopted both programmes with amendments.

The meeting was adjourned.