International Relations and Cooperation Budget Review and Recommendations

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International Relations

20 October 2015
Chairperson: Mr M Masango (ANC)
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Meeting Summary

BRRR Archive: BRRR 2015-2010: Budgetary Review & Recommendations Reports

The Committee tabled, discussed and adopted its Budgetary Review and Recommendations Report.

A Member expressed concern that the report showed that all targets had been met. However, during its presentation, the Department had said that it was still experiencing challenges when it came to women and people with disabilities. Another asked if it was correct to say that the performance had stayed good when the Department was in fact qualified.

The Committee’s Content Advisor informed Members that even though it had received qualified findings for the past two financial years, the Department’s actual performance was commendable. The qualified findings and inconsistent spending found in the report were largely caused by factors beyond its control, such as fluctuating exchange rates when paying representatives on overseas’ missions and receiving refunds for not paying VAT.

Meeting report

Opening Remarks by Chairperson

The Chairperson welcomed everyone. He said that in the last meeting where the Committee considered the draft report, there were inputs that were inserted into the document to inform and guide the BRRR report. He noted that all parliamentary committees were under pressure because the Minister of Finance might need to take their recommendations into account regarding the budgetary process of various departments and institutions. He told the Members that the Minister was making a speech to outline Medium Term Budget Policy Statement (MTBPS) the following day. He was not sure whether the Minister would have time to consider everything the Committee had recommended. Still, he wanted to make sure it got to him in time.

The Minister had said that they were inviting recommendations that would correspond, to a large extent, with the bindings that have already been made. The Chairperson stated that he wanted to focus on the findings and recommendations on the report. He then invited apologies.

Apologies

From the Department, apologies were received from the Minister and Deputy Minister. The Secretary then went on to extend apologies for Ms S Kalyan (DA) who was sick, Mr M Mncwango (IFP) who was attending another meeting, Ms O Maxon (EFF) who was doing organisational work and Dr B Holomisa (UDM) who was attending another meeting. Mr S Mokgalapa (DA) extended apologies for Mr D Bergman (DA) was also attending another meeting.

Draft Budgetary Review and Recommendations Reports of Portfolio Committee on International Relations

The Chairperson asked the Members if they wanted to get into the body of the report page by page or if they wanted to just go over the general document.

Mr Mokgalapa said that everything was just semantics since the whole BRRR was just really rushed so that it could be submitted by the next day. The inputs were not really going to make a difference on the Minister’s speech because that had probably already been drafted and finalised. He did not think the Committee should go into the document verbatim line by line but to just have the Content Advisor go over the general report.

Ms C Dudley (ACDP) agreed. She added that the Committee would need to stop and go over the findings and recommendations, once they got there, in detail.

The Chairperson then asked the content advisor to go over the report.

The Chairperson told the Committee that previous recommendations by members had been crafted and set up as a separate document. They would be reviewing them after. Last year the Committee agreed that it was easier to have the recommendations separately.

The Content Advisor explained that the point of a BRRR was to help the Minister in his mandate to make budgetary decisions for his Department. Recommendations could be financial or non-financial. Page four of the report spoke to the core functions and objectives of the Department of International Relations and Cooperation which, the presenter explained, the Committee was well aware of. Page five showed SA’s continuing show support towards neighboring countries. For example, the report highlighted the country’s involvement in the situation in Lesotho in 2014. South Africa was also elected as chair of the Group of 77 plus China for 2015 and served its second year in the United Nations Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC).

The financial trends of the Department were shown on page five of the report, which showed it had a net underspending total of R112 772 million. The Department recorded foreign exchange losses due to expenditure incurred in missions abroad and payment of membership contributions to international organisations of which South Africa was a member, amounting to R75 million and R47 million respectively

Based on the report by both the Auditor General of South Africa (AGSA) and the Department itself, the Committee had a general agreement that though it had qualified findings for the previous two years, the actual performance of the Department was commendable. The qualified findings and inconsistent spending found in the report were largely caused by fluctuating exchange rates when paying representatives on overseas’ missions. The Department also did not pay VAT on overseas missions so it consequently received refunds, which was another cause of the inconsistency in spending. This was something that the Department could not control.

Other minor decreases in spending were seen for administration. This was because of the delays in capital projects. Specifically, projects in Malawi were delayed because of floods. Programme two’s spending increased from R2.9 million to R 3.1 million in the last financial year. Programme two was normally affected by fluctuating rates or rand depreciation because this was the programme used to pay foreign employees.

Discussion of Report

The Chairperson then invited members of the Committee to address any issues that they might have picked up with the report. He pleaded with the Members to bring the Committee’s attention to the page and paragraph of the issue they wished to discuss.

Ms T Kenye (ANC) referred to page 12 and expressed concern that the report was showing that all targets had been met. During its presentation, the Department had said that it was still experiencing challenges when it came to women and people with disabilities. Which of these statements was correct? Did it really meet all targets or did it have more to work? Also, the issue of Western Sahara was not taken seriously enough.

Mr Mokgalapa thanked the Content Advisor for a job well done with the report. He referred to the statement about Performance Management and Development Skills (PDMS) and expressed admiration that the Department had scored really high with senior employees. However, he expressed concerns regarding the low score that the Department had in the same sector but with junior employees.This issue was about motivation of employees.

The Chairperson joined the Committee members in thanking the advisor on the good report. He directed their attention to a few pages of the report and requested a few grammatical changes as well as adding details such as dates and other minor issues that needed clarification.

Ms Kenye drew the members’ attention to page 19, the last paragraph. She asked if it was correct to say that the performance had stayed good when the Department was in fact qualified.

The advisor responded that this meant that the Department had performed well financially and during the financial year. The issue was that there were minor mistakes and errors in the reporting. But, the actual financial performance was good. In response to the date request made by the Chairperson, she said that it actually needed to stay that way until it had been signed and adopted by the Committee.

The Chairperson then informed the Committee that the DG sent him two text messages to say that he was grateful to the Committee for being honest and forthright and not sparing the Department on the weaknesses it had observed. He was grateful for the feedback and said the Department would try to improve on the weaknesses observed.

At the suggestion of Ms Dudley, a few more changes were made to the report. On page 19, the word seemingly was taken out of the text of the first sentence because, as Ms Dudley said, it made no sense because the issue either happened or it didn’t.

After all the necessary changes were made to the recommendations, the Chairperson then moved the Committee forward to the Findings of the Committee page.

Ms Dudley suggested changing the order of the listed findings. She said it would make better sense if these were reordered so that number one would trade places with number 2. 

The Chairperson explained to Ms Dudley that the order that the Findings were in, emphasised the success of the Department over its failures. The qualified findings were, in large part, associated with fluctuating exchange rates and issues that the Department had very little control over. He preferred to have the list remain the same as it was right then but said that ultimately it was up to the Committee as a whole.

The Committee agreed to leave the order as is but added however to number 2 because they all agreed that it made better sense that way.

Mr L Mpumlwana (ANC) said that there was no need for the second bullet point because the same idea was also expressed in the third. It was just too redundant and needed to be removed.

Mr Mokgalapa responded that this was not a gentlemen’s agreement and that an official Parliament document needed to be written the way it was. It was not up to the Committee to decide what should or should not be left out about the report they received from the Department.

Mr Mpumlwana insisted that they were saying the same thing so therefore nothing was being excluded essentially. He felt very strongly that the number two should be gotten rid of.

The Chairperson argued that in effect, they did represent two different ideas. The third point included details and explanations that the second did not.

In the end, the Committee decided to keep both findings in spite of Mr Mpumlwana’s discomfort.

Mr Mokgalapa suggested that the Committee go through the whole document and not waste too much time on the small details

After minimal changes, the Committee agreed on findings 5 through 20 of the report.

The Committee then moved to Recommendations. They agreed on recommendations 1 and 2. Per recommendations from Mr D Bergman (DA), who arrived later into the meeting, the Committee discussed the employed of specifically skilled people for the correct positions in the Department.

After a brief review of the recommendations, the Committee adopted the report. Mr Mokgalapa wanted to reserve his support for the report until he had discussed it with his party.

The Chairperson discussed invitations that the Committee had received and advised members to go over them and decide what they could attend.

Meeting was adjourned.

 

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