Telecommunications and Postal Services Budgetary Review and Recommendations Report

Meeting report

Draft Budget Review and Recommendation Report on the Department’s 2015/16 Annual Report
The Acting Chairperson of the Committee presented the draft report on the 2015/16 Annual Report for consideration. She asked Members to go through the report page by page. Various grammar, spelling, typographical and style errors were pointed out and corrected.

Regarding the purpose of the report on p6, Ms J Kilian (ANC) said the report was on the oversight conducted by the Committee on the Ministry and the Department.

Mr C Mackenzie (DA) agreed and said the report was an account of the work of the Department and its entities.

Ms Kilian said she felt the graph on page 13 was irrelevant, because it referred to 2013/4 and wanted all reference to previous years removed.

The Committee Researcher said he had wanted to maintain consistency. He proposed that in future it could be fixed, but if he removed all the graphs it would mean a lot of rewriting of the report.

Ms L Maseko said it would be a wrong reflection if the graphs were left out.

Ms M Shinn (DA) said it was important to leave it as it was, because most of the entities had been with the Committee and because it was a historical record. If it were cut out, the report would be a truncated version as this report documented the transition of the entities into the new department.

Mr E Siwela (ANC) said the entities had existed before the Department had been established so the report should remain as it was.

The Acting Chairperson said the report would be left as it was and the point would be made that the Department was established in 2014.

On page 20, Ms Kilian suggested the use of the word ‘policy’ rather than ‘legislation’.

On page 38, Ms Maseko questioned whether it was ‘oversight’ or whether it was ‘service delivery performance’.

Mr Mackenzie agreed, saying it referred to the Committee’s work, not the Department’s work.

Ms Kilian agreed and the piece was removed.

Ms Kilian asked that the bullets be numbered for each of the different entities in section 10, on the summary of the key performance of entities.

On page 52, Mr Mackenzie wanted clarity on the bullet points.

Ms Kilian agreed, saying it was not part of the year in review and the report should not contain such specifics and the sentence should stop at the word board. She added this would be in line with the Standing Committee on Public Accounts and the Appropriations Committee’s call for consequence management based on the PFMA.

The report was adopted with amendments.

ICT training for MPs on a mobile application
A parliamentary official gave a brief presentation highlighting the features of Parliament’s new mobile application which would allow members to access information on parliamentary and committee calendars and schedules, provide access to reports and presentations and give alerts on changes to meeting dates, times or venues. The app was still in the pilot phase after which it would be rolled out to all MPs.

Mr Mackenzie asked about Parliament’s website which contained outdated information and whether the app would be replacing the website.

The official said the app was still in the pilot phase. Currently the website and the app were not talking to each other but this would be resolved by November. The pilot phase was for six months, after which it would be rolled out to all Members of Parliament and by then the information should be up to date.

The meeting was adjourned.