Ad Hoc Committee on Minister of Police Report on Nkandla Committee Programme

Meeting report

The Chairperson welcomed everyone to the meeting and confirmed that the minutes of the previous meeting had been distributed to Members.

Consideration and adoption of minutes

The Chairperson asked Members to go through the minutes dated 11 June 2015.

Mr N Singh (IFP) recalled that before Mr Frolick had been elected as the Chairperson at the previous meeting, it had been confirmed that a non-voting Member could vote in the absence of a voting Member and this had not been captured in the minutes. 

The Chairperson said it would be inserted into the minutes once it had been confirmed.

Mr Singh further recalled thathe had suggested that the Public Protector should be called to appear before the Committee and it was not reflected as a request in the minutes. The minutes merely stated that ‘the proposal to extend the list of persons to be invited to appear before the Committee beyond the Ministers of Police and Public Works were met with objections, because other Members felt that widening the scope of witnesses would be a repetition of the work the previous Ad Hoc Committee had extensively done and reported on’. The matter on who should or should not be called had not been finalised.

The Chairperson suggested that the minutes reflected that the matter would be further discussed.

Dr C Mulder (FF+) said the wording ‘agreements reached’ in the minutes were concerning, because only two agreements had been reached at the previous meeting. One of the agreements was the election of Mr Frolick as the Chairperson and the other was that the Chairperson would come up with a draft programme.

The Chairperson agreed.

The minutes were adopted with amendments.

Consideration of the draft programme

The Chairperson said that Parliament was going into its constituency period at the end of the week and some Members would also be going on oversight visits toward the end of the week. The draft programme proposed that the work of the Committee should start on 21 July 2015 where the Minister of Police would table his report and the report would be deliberated on. The programme also proposed that the Committee undertake a site visit to the Nkandla Private Residence of the President the following day (22 July 2015) to evaluate the report of the Minister. Members would recall that the Minister’s report had an attached presentation that was presented to the media and the public. That presentation made reference to a number of other attachments that were not attached to the report as it now stood, but it would be discussed at the site visit. Thereafter the Committee would deliberate outcomes on the site visit against the Minister’s report. The Committee would also do an evaluation of the work done thus far at the Nkandla Private Residence of the President and do a determination of what should be done further.

Mr Singh said flights between Durban and Cape Town were very restrictive and it was a long drive from Durban to Nkandla. He doubted the Committee would be able to go and be back by 23 July to continue with the work.

Mr J Selfe (DA) agreed to the programme, but said the DA had an existential problem with the Minister’s report and believed it was not lawful for one to substitute a recommendation and a remedial action that was ordered by the Public Protector with that of another person. Submissions on this matter had been prepared and he would like for it to be tabled.

The Chairperson asked that copies of the submissions be distributed to Members and the submissions would be factored into the deliberations.

Adv S Swart (ACDP) shared the sentiments expressed by Mr Selfe and requested that all relevant documents be formally tabled before the Committee. The reference of this Committee spoke only to the Minister’s report and he suggested that there should be a discussion on the relevance of the other reports, including the report of the Public Protector, to the work of the Committee.

Ms M Kubayi (ANC) welcomed the submissions and said Members should be afforded to time to go through the submissions. The Committee Secretary would have to look at what was logistically possible in terms of the programme. Members would have made their own submissions in terms of the House Resolution and that was why it ended in a vote in terms of how this Committee would be established. The House Resolution based on the Rules was that this was a Committee given a mandate and the Speaker would have to refer issues to the Committee. This Committee should not try to ‘reinvent the wheel’ and although not everybody had participated, the previous Ad Hoc Committee of Parliament had been set up and did the work it was mandated to do. That Committee reported to the House and the House accepted the report of the Committee. The processes requested now had been done in the previous Ad Hoc Committee. Members might not be happy, but they walked out and left the process.

Mr D Gamede (ANC) said based on the mandate of the Committee, Members should focus on interrogating the Minister’s report and only thereafter could the Committee look at what else could be done.

Mr N Kwankwa (UDM) said it was not a case of reinventing the wheel, because the bone of contention had been about the people opposition parties felt needed to appear before the previous Ad Hoc Committee. Those people never appeared before the previous Committee and it would not be ‘reinventing the wheel’ by asking them to appear before this Committee.

Dr Mulder said the draft programme was a “point of departure” programme and after this proposed process there needed to be a further programme. He agreed with Mr Kwankwa and said the Minister should appear before the Committee to present this report, but opposition parties requested the Public Protector to appear before the previous Committee and it had not been allowed. He also shared the view of Mr Selfe and Adv Swart on the constitutional validity of the Minister’s report. The Minister’s report referred to other reports and the Committee could not just accept the Minister’s interpretation of those facts. The composition of the Committee showed that the group of other 10 opposition Members had only two voting Members. Mr M Lekota (COPE) had asked Dr Mulder to express his view that he did not accept the constitutionality of the Committee.

Dr M Motshekga (ANC) said there should be some ground rules established on the due process on the work of the Committee. Premature submissions could confuse the public who was entitled to follow the work of this Committee. The purpose of this meeting was to adopt the draft programme and substantive issues should be dealt with during the deliberations.

The draft programme was adopted with the understanding that the logistical challenges would be factored in.

The Chairperson thanked everyone and the meeting was adjourned.