Meeting deferred due to lack of quorum and concerns about Committee Reports

Meeting report

The Committtee received apologies on behalf of Ms T Wana (ANC; Eastern Cape), Mr M Mohapi (ANC; Free State) and Mr M Chetty (DA; KZN) who were out the country for official business.

The Chairperson announced that the Committee would not be having the Indaba on 31 July 2015 due to budget constraints, amongst other things. The Committee needed to look at how to proceed with the guidelines of the procedures without the Indaba. He hoped that management would look at what the Committee could do in the absence of the Indaba.

The Chairperson said the following items of the agenda were going to be reviewed;

1. Third Term Committee programme;
2. 2015 Second Term Quarterly Report;
3. The Mkhize, Sehuma, Paternity leave and Maybuye-Transnet reports; and
4. Draft minutes 13 May, 20 May, 26 May, 27 May and 3 June 2015.

Mr G Michalakis (DA, Free State) asked for clarity on the reports the Committee was going to be considering during the meeting. The Committee had previously discussed them but they were still the same with little or no changes. He asked if there were substantial changes as there were none noticeable. If there were no changes, then why was it back to the Committee again?

Mr Michalakis added that the information Members had requested should have been brought to the Committee already and yet it had not. Discussing the current documents again was a duplication of work.

The Chairperson said he agreed fully with Mr Michalakis, hence he was saying the Committee was going to fully withdraw the documents. Things that the Committee had said should be done had not been done. The documents would be withdrawn and presented again when they were in a better position than they currently were.

The Committee could not proceed with the business of the day as they needed at least six members to be present.

The Chairperson said that when the Chairperson of the NCOP presented the budget vote, the Committee was singled out as having issues that concerned the NCOP. The Chairperson had requested a meeting with the Chairperson of the NCOP to deal with those issues and the internal challenges of the Committee in order to find a solution.

The lack of proper guidelines on how to deal with units that were supposed to manage the petitions and the work done prior to Committee sittings to consider petitions were matters to be taken into the meeting. Also it needed to be pointed out that all efforts for the Committee to do its work better were never supported by the authority of the NCOP, this included signing off on the Committee going to learn about executive undertakings in India which was decline. The administrative wing of the NCOP had also failed the Committee. These were some of the challenges that needed to be brought to light.

Ms G Manopole (ANC, Northern Cape) asked if the second term report would also be recalled.

The Chairperson responded in the affirmative. All reports would be recalled in order to improve them and put them in a better reporting format.

The meeting was adjourned.