Portfolio Committee on Communications Annual Performance Plan evaluation

Meeting report

The Chairperson said that the adoption of the minutes of 1 September 2015 would be deferred, but that the Committee would hear a presentation on the evaluation of the Committee’s Annual Performance Plan (APP). The presentation showed some of the work that the Committee was currently doing, and that from time to time they needed to do an evaluation of their annual plans. This would allow the Committee to record where their weaknesses were.

Mr M Maleka, the Committee’s content advisor, presented the APP. He affirmed that it was linked to Parliament’s five year strategic plan, as well as the Portfolio Committee on Communications’ (PCC) own strategic plan, so the presentation was similar to an unpacking of the plan. It gave a review of the PCC’s strategic goals in terms of its strategic objectives and indicators, which were targets for the Annual Performance Plan (APP) and activities which were linked to a timeline which guided the PCC. The PCC had four strategic goals, which were outlined in the document presented. 

Discussion

Mr G Davis (DA) inquired about the first strategic goal – to provide management, strategic and administrative support to the Committee. He said that this seemed to be more like the job description of the secretariat than that of the Committee. He further asked for clarity on the PCC’s fourth strategic goal – to encourage and uphold the communications agenda for the Southern African Development Community (SADC) and the international community – and asked Mr Maleka to describe what that communications agenda was. He thought that it was too broad to make sense, including literally the whole world. He wanted to know how Mr Maleka would critically define this and asked for some clarity on what that agenda was. He held that another strategic goal of the Committee, which was part of the Committee’s constitutional mandate, must be to oversee and scrutinise executive action, because that was how the Committee’s oversight role was set out in the Constitution. He very strongly proposed that the Committee add another bullet point that stated that the Committee should scrutinise and oversee executive action.   

Regarding Mr Davis’s first point, the Chairperson responded that the ‘management’ that was listed in the document referred to management as a verb and not as a noun, in other words, providing management services, rather than to managers.

Mr Maleka asked the Committee to let him present on the strategic indicators, as the strategic goals provided more of an overview, and did not necessarily show what each of the indicators were. The slide titled “PCC 5 year strategic plan” provided an overview of how each of the strategic goals corresponded to one of the programmes in the APP.

The Chairperson said that she wanted to unpack each of the strategic objectives, because that was where everything was aligned. She told Mr Maleka that once he had presented on the strategic goals, they could get back to it.

The PCC was shown the programmes and strategic objectives (SOs) of the APP. SO1 looked at the statutory appointments that the Committee had responsibility over, including the Media Development and Diversity Agency (MDDA), the South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC), the Independent Communications Authority of South Africa (ICASA), and the Film and Publications Board (FPB).
SO2 looked at performance reviews, whereas SO3 looked at responses to recommendations across the board and included, for instance, recommendations of the Auditor General from the Fourth Parliament. Those were the kinds of recommendations that the committee makes on an ad hoc basis.

SO4 had seven indicators which had to do with how the Committee processed information so that it gave credibility to parliamentary processes -- for instance, approval was a focal conclusion that the Committee had to adopt. Indicator 2 - standardisation - was a very critical one and the Committee needed to ensure that because they had so many equity targets, that some form of standardisation would enable and empower Members to have uniform information that came into and went out of the Committee. Regarding the seven days’ notice, Members should get information at least seven days before they appeared before the Committee. The oversight dashboard matrix was supposed to be developed and the Committee was extensively working on that to ensure that they had some kind of dashboard tool that could track all of the recommendations that they made. Indicator five concerned subject matter specialists, as from time to time the Committee needed to invite subject matter specialists to come and present to them to empower them in terms of the particular area that they wanted to address. Indicator six regarded the Committee developing a stakeholder database that would include all of the central players. They had started to do this, in that they had named some of the central players, but they wanted to have a composite stakeholder database that they could use whenever it was needed. Indicator seven concerned the National House of Traditional Leaders. The Committee knew that they were the constituents for rural areas in the country, so it needed to engage the National House of Traditional Leaders and ask them, for instance, how it impacted on the National Communications Strategy.

Mr Maleka said that SO5 had three indicators, the first one being PCC standardization and how indicators were linked. The second indicator concerned the expansion of the standardisation process so that a standardized approach was ensured. Indicator three dealt with social networks’ integration, as the communications sector was changing rapidly and on a daily basis, and it went without saying that this Committee needed to be at the forefront of social network evolution to ensure that the communications agenda of the government was taken fully in its stride.

SO6 of programme one concerned methodology for PCC budgeting. There used to be a wide, blanket, cover-all strategy approach where all committees were given a certain amount of money, and that could not be realistic, especially of one took into consideration that the Committee had so many activities and so much impact to make, so there needed to be a cost-based strategy aligned to it. There had been much consultation going on between the Committee staff, the budget office of the Committee and the office of the Chairperson to ensure that there was some form of consolidated approach to the budget.

The Chairperson asked about SO4, indicator six. While all of the indicators related to all of the Committee’s stakeholders, and while there were many that overlapped with the Portfolio Committee on Telecommunications and Postal Services, the PCC had chosen to focus at this time on those that were relevant and were directly accountable to it. It was critical that the Committee started to work within those areas that were related to the Committee.

The second issue related to the budgeting process. The Committee had not actually gone into that. It was still a technical process. Of course there had been some squabbles among former chairpersons of the Portfolio Committee regarding how budgets had been done. In the past, she thought that it was moving away from being so technical, but now it was becoming very technical and it was moving away from political discussion which was a problem, because as Committee members there was a need to engage directly with the budget. A direct example concerned transport, one of the biggest issues during oversight. Members are driven to the SABC in a combi, which was uncomfortable and unnecessary, because they were public representatives. A situation of that nature could not be allowed. Those were some of the things that at some point the Committee had to come back to. Sometimes there was that kind of a gap in Parliament where the administration took over, even deciding on the political side, and this created a bit of a problem. The Committee does not have a chance to actually getting back the budget. It should also have a brief overview, and those were some of the things that would need to be brought up in terms of evolving the process of Parliament.

Mr Maleka said that the PCC was very keen on engaging with the various committees, as they helped it to understand how it could get to a cost-based budget, and enable it to effectively do its duties.

He had highlighted various indicators and links between SO4 and SO5 which related to the standardisation process, because that involved an entire Information communication technology (ICT) process. This would enable the Committee to develop systems that standardised how it conducted its oversight processes. This had been included in the presentation so that Committee Members were well aware of the links between SO4 and SO5.

The first SO1 of Programme 2 looked at how the PCC ensures that the Department and its entities were structured and a lot of these indicators overlapped.

Programme 3 had three SOs. SO1 looked at how the Committee could increase public participation within the Committee’s work programme. SO2 considered how the Committee involved relevant stakeholders, looking at effective consultation and association with those who protected the interests of the Department and its entities. During the oversight period and excursions that were undertaken, Members realised that there were challenges with some of the entities listed in that report and how they related to their staff, particularly ICASA, as had been indicated in the oversight report.

The first indicator of Programme three dealt with financial management, budgeting and monitoring of capacity building for Members integrated into the Committee programme. This had already started. The second indicator dealt with the implementation of a budget monitoring tool for the Committee, and this was still linked to the second programme of the Committee.

Programme four was the Committee’s last programme, and its SO looked at how the Committee encouraged and upheld the Communications Agenda for the Southern African Development Community (SADC). Here the Committee also monitored and reviewed multilateral and bilateral agreements between South Africa and SADC countries and the international community. With all international treaties and engagements in which the government engaged, it was the responsibility of Parliament to ratify the treaty. This had not been undertaken, and more time would be allocated to engage with that particular issue.

The Chairperson asked what this meant.

Mr Maleka said it was policy that Parliament was supposed to ratify any kind of agreement that South Africa had with any other country. He had engaged the Chairperson on this to say that he would like at some point to invite the content advisor for the Department of International Relations to come and inform Members on international treaties.

The Chairperson said that she needed to do an intervention on the issue of Parliament ratifying treaties, because it had been discussed by the Committee in a previous meeting. However, the Minister clarified that the issue at hand dealt with the SABC’s Memorandum of Incorporation, and not a treaty. The Minister also clarified that a Memorandum of Incorporation was not the same as a treaty. Since the Committee had been formed as separate to the Portfolio Committee on Telecommunications and Postal Services, no treaties had been heard by the PCC. However, the Committee could still review past treaties because they were very critical in relation to SO1. In addition, she agreed with Mr Maleka that the Committee needed to have a joint sitting with the Department of International Relations in which the Department of International Relations could inform the PCC on exactly what an international treaty is.
 
Mr Maleka responded that the Chairperson corrected the issue well and he thinks that the issue was that the PCC used to be one Department of Communications (DoC) and now it was split into two. The international treaties that had been signed for Digital Terrestrial Television (DTT) might at some point be relevant to the PCC. So the Committee needed to be sure that what belonged to the Communications Committee; rather than Portfolio Committee on Telecoms and Postal Services; comes to the PCC.

Under Programme Four, Indicator one dealt with engaging the Department and its entities about the communications agenda for regional and international communities. As the Department reported to the Committee, it needed to follow up and find out if they had any intention to sign any treaties. Indicator two was the actual active engagement with the relevant counterparts of the SADC and international bodies and this was particularly important for the Committee Members, as Parliamentarians, to ensure that there was a co-operative approach to how the country interacted with the rest of the world. The last indicator was about monitoring and evaluating the agreements, and some of them might have been signed during Fourth Parliament.

Now that it was in the third quarter of the financial year, the Committee was not doing that badly. It had actually achieved those activities that it had wanted to in the allocated time. Under programme one, it had achieved about 27 activities, compared to the partially achieved ones, which was just above ten. For programme two, most of them were partially achieved. The bigger picture reflects a Committee that does do its work, in terms of the activities that it had set for itself.   

The Chairperson thanked Mr Maleka for the overview illustrating where the Committee stands in the implementation of its strategic plan and the APP, and asked if Members had issues or proposals that they wanted to raise.

The Chairperson said that the first issue that she wanted to raise was that the Committee also needed to include some other items in the area of ICT.  An example would be the information on the dashboard, in terms of what the Committee was doing, as it would be very easy in every meeting to look into particular areas, and identify as a Portfolio Committee where it was lacking. This would provide a balance and the Committee would not find itself maybe doing more oversight on some issues than others. For instance, it was aware that it had not started with the legislation and there were a lot of issues that needed to be addressed.

The Committee was very well placed within the structure of Parliament. Some work had already started which would complement the Portfolio Committee’s thinking. There was basic work that Parliament had done, and the Committee needed to see how it could make a role for itself, and show it was able to move along with the times.

Mr Davis asked if there were any sanctions to be applied against parties or members of the Committee that consistently did not come to the meetings. He inquired if that was a matter for the parties to deal with, or if it was a matter for the Committee to deal with, because their colleague from the Economic Freedom Front (EFF) party never came to Committee meetings. Was it a problem for the Committee to deal with, or was it the EFF’s problem, or the problem of both?

The Chairperson responded that at this point in time it was more of the party’s responsibility. Normally the chief whips would have the roll call of participants, and then it was taken from there. Sometimes the parties sent members to other meetings so that they could not attend this Portfolio Committee meeting. In terms of the new rules, there were areas where the Portfolio Committee did have some say, but at the moment, the issue needed to be raised with the party.

The minutes of 1 September 2015 were moved for adoption by Mr M Kekana (ANC) and seconded by Ms R van Schalkwyk (ANC).

The Chairperson referred to changes in the Parliamentary programme which would require replanning of its oversight visits. She suggested various alternatives to the Committee, including those involving ICASA.   

Mr Davis asked for clarity from the Chairperson on exactly what she wanted to raise with the state security agent, as it was not clear what specific matters were related to the work that the Committee did. The second issue was the SABC board vacancies -- the three vacancies that had been standing open for a long time. There was also the issue of ICASA and the five vacancies that had been referred back to the sub-committee. Was there any indication of whether the sub-committee would meet to finalise that matter?

The Chairperson responded to Mr Davis saying that on the first matter that he raised, concerning the state security agency, the Committee had realised that other agencies also had problems with it in terms of how they did their analysis and how they gave feedback to individuals that they were vetting. It was therefore very important for the Committee to actually understand how the State Security Agency worked. If there were any measures to be taken, the Committee had a responsibility to actually do oversight and actually decide, and need to speak from experience. It needed to be really clear, to understand and know what they did.

On the issue of the SABC, the Chairperson said that she had unfortunately not received a response on whether the Committee was going to Durban, but the Chair of Chairs had set up a meeting with her and she assumed that the agenda would include all the issues. On the matter of ICASA, the Committee had agreed at the last meeting that the sub-committee had to sit down and go through the process related to them. What was outstanding was a date, and the Committee would be working around a date that was available.

The Chairperson added that the Committee would meet on 15 September with ICASA and the Department, and presentations would be given. She asked if Members could please review the previous presentation that had been given.The Committee would be meeting ICASA for the first time regarding community radio stations.

Mr Davis asked if the Committee would be meeting with the Minister next week on the Comtask recommendations.

The Chairperson replied that it would.

Mr Davis said that he thought that was quite crucial because there had been a lot of reports about it but the Committee had not seen those reports.

The Chairperson said that she would make sure that Committee members got the documents in advance.

The meeting was adjourned.