Committee Report on Department of Communications budget

Meeting report

Draft Committee Report on Budget vote for Department of Communications
The draft Committee Report (the Report) on the adoption of the budget for the Department of Communications (DOC or the Department) was tabled and Members were asked to go through it, page by page.

Ms S van Schalkwyk (ANC) pointed out an error and said the projected income was R1.1 billion for 2015/16, and not for 2016/17.
 

Mr G Davis (DA) asked where the figures came from indicating that income was to grow from R19 million in relation to the SABC in 2015/16. He pointed out that many reports in the public domain indicated that it was in fact running at a loss of R500 million. He also said the audience share for SABC was declining, but the Report noted that it was going to remain constant.

The Chairperson said this information came from the overview by the Minister of Communications, on the Strategic Plan and the figures were based on what had been presented before. The question of whether there was a decline in audience would be discussed another day.

Mr Davis asked if the Committee must accept what was said by the Minister. This appeared to be the Minister's view, not the Committee view. He said he did not agree with many of the statements and issues in the Report.

The Chairperson pointed out that Mr Davis was not present when the Annual Performance Plans were presented.

Ms N Ndongeni (ANC) said that in the last line of paragraph four, dealing with the audience share targets, there was a need to reword the phrase.

The Committee Secretary pointed out that there might be some grammatical mistakes and that these would be corrected.

Ms S van Schalkwyk asked if the Films and Publications Board was omitted on purpose or for a reason.

The Chairperson said it was an oversight.

Mr R Tseli (ANC) said that the most important point was that the Committee should be focusing on what it needed to include in the recommendations section, and what it wanted to see going forward. He suggested that Members might go straight to the Recommendations section, because he thought that some of the information in the other pages did not need to be debated.

The Chairperson agreed with Mr Tseli's points, but said that it was procedurally correct for the Committee to proceed page by page.

Mr Davis said the Report should note clearly that it was Parliament which amended or dealt with bills, and not the Department.

Mr Davis took issue with the statement that the Department and entities were working in unison.

Mr Tseli said this might be a case of wording, and perhaps Mr Davis was seeing the issue through another lens - he believed that even if they were not absolutely in unison, they were working well.

The Chairperson said that it was true the Department and entities were working together, as evidenced in the strategic plans presented.

The Chairperson said that SABC only gets 2% funding from the government even though it was a public broadcaster, and this required a review, in line with the broadcaster mandate.

Mr Davis responded that the problem with such a view was that it was suggesting that the SABC's problems stemmed from lack of funding. To his mind, the problems were more to do with lack of corporate management. He thought that any review process must focus on how SABC was managing its funds.

The Chairperson said the SABC matter needed to be looked into holistically, including the management of funding. The recommendation on 2% funding was a recommendation which perhaps even a future Committee could look into.

The Chairperson said the Media Diversity and Development Agency (MDDA) strategic plan and Annual Performance Plan had not been approved by the Board because the Board was appointed late and did not have time to look at the strategic plan. There was a challenge of capacity and stability at MDDA that needed to be addressed.

She added that Brand SA had offices in United Kingdom, China and United States, but no office in Africa. The Committee welcomed the proposal by the Minister to review the structure of Brand SA.

Mr Davis said that page 5 noted that Brand SA "must be positioned locally" but elsewhere the Report also noted that Brand SA had offices in three countries only, which were confusing.

The Chairperson said there must be a balance between branding locally and abroad.

Mr Davis said Brand SA must be either inward looking or outward looking. His major concern related to where the money would come from. Brand SA had never presented anything tangible on the return on investment. The budget would soon run out of control, should the Committee recommend that offices were to be opened in other countries.

Mr Tseli thought the recommendation was for the situation observed at present, and the future was to for branding locally and in other African countries.

The Chairperson said the concern was that Brand SA had no offices in African countries.

Mr Davis asked if the reference to the Minister's presence in the budget review process meant the Minister's presence before the Committee, in the budget review process.

The Chairperson said sometimes the Committee needed to get a political response and the Minister should be present throughout, especially when the APPs were presented.

Mr Davis said it was essentially the responsibility of the Minister and he felt that there was no need to put in a specific recommendation although it would be good to set higher standards for the minister.

Mr Tseli noted that there was an overall appreciation expressed for the presence of the Minister during the APP process.

Mr Davis said it was the Minister's job to come to Parliament, and there was no need to recommend her presence before the Committee, since she accounted to Parliament.

Mr Davis said the Committee must do its work right as a collective, and not on a party basis. This Committee should not present a rosy picture on what the SABC was doing, otherwise it was failing the country. This Report did not look at the contentious issues the Committee had been dealing with over the past year. The Committee could not recommend confidence in the SABC Board, when there had been complaints about Ministerial interference, the Public Protector's report, and the outcome of a court case that recommended a suspension, as well as controversial editorial decisions. He reiterated that there was no need to try to paint a rosy picture on the SABC and the role of the Minister.

Mr Tseli said some of the issues raised by Mr Davis were fair issues, which may take the SABC to another level in the future. However, he suggested that Mr Davis must convince the Committee to make them part of the recommendations.

Mr M Kekana (ANC) said Mr Davis' recommendations were against those who attended the meeting and seemed to be suggesting that the Committee had not expressed things in the right manner. The Committee, as a unified structure, agreed to the improvements done by the SABC and, as stated in this Report, the SABC was trying to do good. Mr Davis could request another forum to discuss the issues he raised. He must refrain from talking about the issues of the SABC because he was not there. There were minutes for more than ten meetings, starting with the day when the Committee dealt with the issue of Ellen Tshabalala. Mr Davis came with the Tshabalala issue and the Committee took it on. However, in relation to Hlaudi Motsoeneng, Mr Davis had undermined the same Committee by running to have the matter resolved in the courts.

Mr Davis said the Committee must interrogate the Report, before he could agree with it. There was no consensus in the room on the issues the Committee had been dealing with over the past year, not the court case. Other issues left were the Memorandum of Incorporation and interference by the Minister, and allegations of loss making, and other indicatives at the SABC. In order to make the SABC a well-managed organisation, the Committee must not present anything less than the truth.

The Chairperson said the Report could only capture what was said by members on that day and not attempts to revise what had been said.

Ms D Tsotetsi (ANC) said it was not good for a Member who was absent from those meetings to come and try to change the Report now. She was also of the opinion that the issues raised by Mr Davis should more appropriately not be included in this Report, but set aside for the moment, for future deliberations.

Mr Tseli said if minutes were written on everything a Member said in a meeting, the Committee should not be having a 27 page document. There were Members who raised issues in that meeting and those issues had not found support from other Members. Reports were written based on the majority discussions and outcomes, not written to detail every minority issue that did not receive support from other Members. 

Mr Davis said if that was the case, there was no reason to deliberate on this Report, because this would be covered in the Minutes of the day. However, if the Report was supposed to be for the Committee, then Members could discuss and argue on things written in the report.

The Chairperson said it was unfortunate that Mr Davis was not in the previous meeting since the Report was essentially capturing what had happened.

Mr Davis said the Committee could not avoid deliberating what had been discussed on that day, to come up with a good Report of which the Committee could be proud. Everything in the Report was also written in the past tense. He saw no reason, given the comment, why the Committee was deliberating this Report.

The Chairperson requested that the Committee proceed to other issues.

Mr Tseli said the Committee must recommend that the Independent Communications Authority of the South Africa (ICASA) should put in effective management of all frequency spectrums. Entities must stick to Parliamentary compliance dates on submission of reports. The shareholder must intensify oversight over its entities. A forum should be established in the DOC to share best practices on financial management. The shareholder must put consequences on non performance.

Mr Davis was not sure whether it was the Minister or the Committee that must intensify oversight.

Mr Tseli said there was an agreement between the Minister and the entities for oversight. The Committee would not enter into an agreement with the entities.

The Chairperson said even though the Committee was responsible for oversight, the Minister must also intensify her oversight.

Mr Davis said the problem was that her oversight role was becoming too much of interference. He welcomed the need to increase oversight, but the SABC had experienced too much interference on the part of the Minister.

Mr Kekana agreed with Mr Tseli that discipline needed to be enforced. He suggested that the Chairperson should perhaps ask the legal division of Parliament to comment on the Committee's oversight role, where it had sufficient powers, and how it should exercise them. The induction sessions for the Committee had never covered the oversight role in sufficient depth to make the Committee Members fully aware of what precisely that oversight entailed, and it depended on individual Members who might have read more or less to get their understanding of what oversight was. He believed that all the entities fell under Ministerial oversight, and she was the person tasked with taking administrative decisions. The Committee also needed to understand the relationship between Parliament and the Minister.

Mr Tseli said if the Minister performed her duty on what entities were supposed to be doing, Mr Davis might tend to call it "interference", but he must remember that the Minister has the mandate to ensure that entities must do what they were set up to do. The Committee called the Minister to tell her of what might be happening in the entity, and she should act upon it.

Mr Davis retorted that there was no need to call the legal department of Parliament. The Constitution was a legal opinion in itself. Members must uphold the Constitution. The Constitution set out the relationship between the executive and Parliament, and he suggested that Mr Kekana familiarise himself with what was said there. He responded to Mr Tseli that the Broadcasting Act was clear on the role of the Minister in relation to the SABC. It was not the role of the Minister to interfere with the Board.

The Chairperson said in terms of the Constitution the Minister accounted to Parliament. She was not sure what the Members were arguing about. The Minister was given a responsibility over entities and their structures. The Minister was the one who accounted before Parliament, although she could also send her Deputy Minister or a Director General. The Committee could call any other person whom it wanted to account to appear before the Committee.

Mr Kekana said the Minister accounted to the Committee, and he questioned what the powers of the Committee would be if things were not going well in an entity? There was a need for a proper interpretation on what the Committee could do, when things were going well and badly in entities.

Mr Davis said he had many recommendations to make. The list of recommendations in the Report set out nothing on SABC, Government Communications and Information System (GCIS) or Independent Communications Authority of SA (ICASA). The Committee had made no comprehensive recommendations on the big entities that the Committee oversaw. He commented that he had not found this day's meeting to be particularly good, because he had simply been "shot down" by the Chairperson and other Members. This Report, he commented, was entirely insufficient, and did not reflect the real status quo in the communications sector. He commented that he had felt steam-rollered in the meeting. He strongly rejected the Report, and wanted to note his objection to the say in which the meeting had been conducted.

Mr Davis then left the meeting.

Mr Tseli said the Report could not capture "every broken window" at SABC, but could capture critical matters in the Department.

Ms V van Dyk (DA) also noted her objection to the Report.

The Chairperson moved for the adoption of the Report, with the recommendations and amendments.

The majority of Members adopted the Report.

The meeting was adjourned