Report back by Workgroups

Meeting report

PUBLIC ACCOUNTS STANDING COMMITTEE
30 April 2002
REPORT BACK BY WORKGROUPS

Chairperson: Mr F Beukman (NNP)

Present:

African National Congress

Mr L Chiba
Mr P Gerber
Mr DM Gumede
Mr BW Kannemeyer
Ms PK Mothoagae
Mr BZ Nair
Mr VG Smith

Democratic Party

Mr NS Bruce
Mr M Lowe

New National Party

Mr F Beukman (Chairperson)

African Christian Democratic Party

Ms C Dudley

Apologies: Dr G W Koornhof, Ms NL Hlangwana

In attendance from the Office of the Auditor-General: Mr Cobus Botes, Mr A van Wyk, and Ms L Less.

1. Decisions

The Committee will form a management group consisting of representatives from various political parties, which will assist the chairperson with programming and communication between the parties.

The draft program was adopted until 26 June with some amendments. The Committee will hold a workshop away from Parliament. The workshop will be in camera. Parties should consider the matter and come with proposals on the date and issues to be discussed by Tuesday.

The Committee will meet with the CFO of Justice on 24 May. The Committee will also meet with the CFO and the DG of Arts and Culture, and the DG of Health on 14 June. The chairperson will interact with the chairpersons of the relevant Portfolio Committees about the meetings.

The chairperson was nominated to give the 10 minutes speech at the APAC conference.

The draft resolution on Land Affairs was adopted with amendments.

Matters arising

Group one

The chairperson should write a letter to the Speaker to seek clarity on the extent of the oversight role of SCOPA on the intelligence services and also enquire about the tabling of their Intelligence annual report.

The chairperson should write a letter to the Committee section manager, Mr R Yako regarding the Justice resolution, which was, adopted by the Committee in the last session but which has not appeared in the ATC.


The chairperson should make arrangements for Mr Blaas to attend the group meeting next week so that he can hand over to the group the matters that he was dealing with.

Group two

The chairperson should find out what is the status of the Health resolution, which was passed last year by the Committee but was never adopted by the House.

Group three

The Office of the Auditor-General reported that Transnet is not allowing them
access to documents. The Office reported that it was seeking legal opinion on
the matter. The group requests the Committee to also seek advice from the
Parliamentary law advisers on this matter because it hampers Parliament in
the exercise of its oversight function.

General

The secretariat should number the documents tabled according to the date on which they are tabled.

The process for dealing with the Auditor-General's general report for the year ended March 2001 is referred to the management group.


The issue on the amount of time spent by the Committee on APAC workshops and training sessions is referred to the Committee workshop.

Deliberations

Welcome and opening by the chairperson.

The chairperson proposed that the Committee should have a workshop. The proposal was agreed to.

The chairperson proposed that the Committee should form a management group consisting of representatives from each political party to assist the chairperson with communication between the parties and look at the program. The proposal was agreed to.

3.1 Group report back

Group one: Mr V Smith

The group agreed that the hearing on the Legal Aid Board would take place on 15 May 2001. On 12 June there will be a hearing either on SAPS or Correctional Services. The group requests that the chairperson make arrangements for Mr Blaas to come and hand over to the group the matters that he was dealing with.

The group requests the chairperson to write a letter to the Speaker to ask for clarity on the extent to which SCOPA should exercise its oversight role on the Intelligence Services with regard to the AG reports. The group also requests the chairperson to write a letter to Mr Yako on the processing of the Justice resolution, which was adopted by the Committee during the last session.

Group two: Mr B Kannemeyer

Ms Hlangwana has been hospitalised and the group has only two members.

The group has been working on the preparations for the hearing on Parliament and Water Affairs Forestry. The group will meet the Auditors on Monday at 09h00 until 11h00 and also on Tuesday. Plenary will be briefed on the critical issues. Any member who has any issue to raise on the hearing should contact the group members.

The resolution with regard to the matter of Sarafina 2 has not been adopted by Parliament. The Committee should find out what the status of the resolution is currently because there are deadlines, which were given to the department.

The Director-General of the Health department wants to meet with the group to clarify matters for implementation.

The Committee should develop policy on its approach to requests by DGs to have meetings with groups or the chairperson.

The Committee agreed that this matter be referred to the workshop.

Group three: Mr D Gumede

Overview of 2000/2001 reports.

Agriculture - waiting for evaluation of replies.
Arts, Culture, Science & Technology - No need for questions.
Environmental Affairs and Tourism - Received evaluations.
Labour - waiting for replies; planning to have a hearing.
Land Affairs - Resolution ready for adoption.
Minerals and Energy Affairs - Waiting for evaluations from the Auditors.
Public Enterprises - Evaluations received.
Public Works - The report has not been tabled. The group would prefer that the report be tabled before the hearing in June. The group requests the chairperson to inquire about when the report will be tabled.
Trade and Industry - The group is waiting for evaluations.
Transport - Waiting for replies.
Treasury - Waiting for evaluations.

The group dealt with ten reports. One report has not been tabled. Three hearings have been identified. They are Transport, which includes RAF, Public Works and Labour. Labour includes the Compensation Fund, CCMA and the SETAs.

The group dealt with 42 miscellaneous reports. Eleven sets of miscellaneous questions have been sent and eight have been requested from the Auditors. The group will prioritize Compensation Fund, Rail Commuter Corporation, RAF, Lotteries Board, UIF, and RDP funds.

There are 18 cases of unauthorised expenditure and 16 of them are outstanding. Treasury replies on SARS have been received.

Hearings

22 May - Labour, UIF, SETA, CCMA and Compensation Fund.
22 May - Transport, RAF and Transport Agencies.
5 June - Public Works; the group will continue with the hearing even if the report has not been tabled.
7 August - Lotteries Board
21 august - PIC and SA Rail Commuter Corporation.
4 September - Living Marine Resources Fund and Pension Funds.


The group has a problem with SAA not taking action on the usage of the brand name of sun Air by another company and the non-payment for the purchase of airplanes.

The group requests the chairperson to ask for legal opinion from the Parliamentary law advisers on whether Transnet has the right to refuse Office of the Auditor General access to information.

3.2 General

The amended program was adopted until June. The chairperson stated that outstanding resolutions be dealt with on 26 June and added that the program for the remaining months will be discussed in two weeks time.

Mr Botes informed the Committee that a performance audit is being carried out on SITA and proposed that the hearing be moved to 23 October. The proposal was agreed to.

The chairperson stated that members complain because they receive a lot of paper. He added that the researcher will be asked to look at a numbering system but in the meantime SCOPA documents should be given a SCOPA number.

The chairperson requested parties to come up with proposals on what should be on the agenda for the workshop and also come up with a date for the workshop by Tuesday. He added that the workshop would be at a venue away from Parliament. The Committee also agreed that the workshop would be held in camera.

The chairperson informed the Committee that he had a meeting with the CFO of Justice on Friday and he indicated that he wants to have interaction with the Committee because problems are going to come to the fore in the next report. The chairperson also had a meeting with the CFO and DG of Arts and Culture and they indicated that they were frustrated with the investigation by the three agencies on the state theatre. They said that the final report would be out in the next three weeks.

The Committee agreed that a meeting with the Justice CFO will take place on 24 May and a meeting with the Arts and Culture DG and CFO will take place on 14 June. The Committee agreed that chairpersons of the relevant Portfolio Committees be invited to the meetings.

The Committee agreed on the date of 19 June for a hearing on the AG's second general report. It was agreed that it will be a question and answer session and every member should read the report. The management group will discuss the time frame and the sequence of questions for each member. The issue of whether the four departments that have been highlighted in the report should be called was debated and referred to the management group.

The chairperson was nominated to give the ten minutes speech at the APAC conference. The chairperson stated that members should inform the secretariat in time if they are not attending any APAC training because if they cancel at the last minute the Committee gets charged.

Mr Gerber raised concern that the Committee spends one third of its time on APAC and proposed that this be looked at. The matter was referred to the workshop.

The Committee considered and adopted the Land Affairs draft resolution.

The meeting adjourned at 12:45.