Committee Report on Filling of Vacancies in ICASA Council

Meeting report

The Chairperson said the purpose of the meeting was to consider the Committee Report on filling of vacancies in the Independent Communications Authority of South Africa (ICASA) Council that was processed by the Portfolio Committee and referred back to the Portfolio Committee by National Assembly. The intention was to have a Subcommittee to deal with the report and the Portfolio Committee had referred it back to the Subcommittee. The Members of the Portfolio Committee mandated by various political parties constituted the Subcommittee. Members were: Mr R Tseli, Mr M Kekana, Ms D Tsotetsi and Ms Moloi-Moropa from the ANC; two were present in the meeting. Ms V Van Dyk from the DA, who was also present in the meeting. Mr M Ndlozi from the EFF, and Mr W Madisha, COPE, were also part of the Subcommittee but were not present and their apologies were not forwarded to the Committee.

There were only three Members in the meeting, which meant it did not form a quorum. Mr Kekana was on his way to the meeting and would constitute a fourth Member. But even though they could not form a quorum the Subcommittee should look what was before them and see what they could do.

With the assistance of the Committee Secretary communications would be sent to those Members that did not send apologies so that it would not happen again.

The Portfolio Committee had a responsibility to fill the vacancies of the ICASA Council. It was different from the South African Broadcasting Authority (SABC), it was a Ministerial task that went to the Minister and could be referred back to the Portfolio Committee. The Committee was fortunate because it had interacted quite a lot with ICASA, including reports, and even last week there was the Annual Performance Report for the BRRR which will be considered in the current budget going forward, and they will have an update on that.

The Portfolio Committee also undertook an oversight visit to ICASA. During the visit, it was made aware of a report from the Fourth Parliament that was commissioned and researched where there were outcomes and recommendations that were made in terms of cutting the number of councillors. The Minister had a wish to implement that, but that process was awaited. Legislation would formally be amended to that effect, but at this point the matter was referred to the Portfolio Committee, which proceeded with the issue of calling for nominations, which were received, candidates were short listed and interviewed.

The Subcommittee finalised the vacancies of 5 councillors and sent the report to the Portfolio Committee, which then sent it to the House for approval. During the Subcommittee process, Ms Van Dyk raised the issue of Mr Ntenteni when a report was received from the State Security Agency, which did not raise any problems about the candidate. The report was taken to the Portfolio Committee then to the House. A Member of the opposition, who was not Member of the Subcommittee, raised the matter in the House. In the House it was withdrawn by the Chief Whip of the majority party and sent back to the Subcommittee. Therefore, it was to cleanse that area and to agree how to deal with it and move forward.

The Chairperson had dealt with the matter in the meantime because she believed that if the State Security Agency gave the correct information the Subcommittee would not have to go through the process of bringing the report back. They did the right thing because they’ve touched on the areas they needed to touch on. The area of vetting was not their area which was why State security agencies were requested to deal with the issue of vetting, and off course it was disappointing as a Subcommittee and Portfolio Committee that it could not send something to the House which had areas that were questionable because they believed they had done what they could. Having noticed that, the Chairperson interacted with the State security agency by calling and inviting them to the meeting and the answers were still unclear. In light of responses from the State security agency it was her belief that at some point they needed to call the State Security Agency to come and explain that process.

Discussion
Ms P Van Damme (DA) had two concerns. Firstly, as there was no quorum they should not discuss issues; and secondly, having just received those documents Members would like to study them in detail before they could give their position. She proposed that they adjourn the meeting and come back when there is a quorum and discuss the documents.

The Chairperson said that they would not adjourn the meeting because Mr Kekana was coming, then there would be a quorum. Waiting for Mr Kekana would give Members a chance to go through the documents.  It was important that she had given the background so that Members could be aware where things were and based on that be able to reflect on the issues.

Mr R Tseli (ANC) asked how many Members were required for a quorum.

The Chairperson said that Members of the Subcommittee were supposed to be 7 and to form a quorum they needed four Members present in the meeting.

The Chairperson warned that the documents distributed to Members contained confidential information that was strictly for Members of the Subcommittee.

The Chairperson said with one Member short the meeting should be adjourned.

Mr Tseli said that they should agree as to when they would reconvene the meeting so that they could forward their recommendations before the next Portfolio Committee meeting took place.

The Chairperson said the next Portfolio meeting would benext week Tuesday, 3 November 2015. She proposed that the Subcommittee should reconvene on Tuesday next week before the Portfolio Committee meeting so that when the Portfolio Committee sat it could look at all the report including the BRRR because it was circulated to Members and still needed to go to the Chair of Chairs.

The meeting was adjourned.