MDDA, ICASA, FPB, Brand South Africa on Quarter 1 & 2 performance

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Communications and Digital Technologies

14 February 2017
Chairperson: Mr H Maxegwana (ANC)
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Meeting Summary

Four of the entities under the Department of Communications, namely the Media Development and Diversity Agency (MDDA), Brand South Africa (BSA), Films and Publications Board (FPB) and the Independent Communications Authority of South Africa (ICASA) presented their first and second quarter performance and expenditure reports for 2016/17.

MDDA addressed some issues raised by the Committee in 2016 and gave the Committee an overview of these achievements. Some of these included the appointment of the CEO and other critical positions as well as a Social Impact study that would be concluded prior to the end of the financial year. The MDDA was also piloting an outreach campaign in four provinces to raise awareness of MDDA and a partnership was entered into with Small Enterprise Development Agency (SEDA) on business enterprise development for the community-based media. MDDA supported a number of community broadcast, print and digital projects across South Africa but was concerned whether these projects would continue to be self-sustainable.

BSA appointed a new Board which was appointed and assumed office on 1 June 2016 after having obtained Letters of Authority as per the Master of the High Court. Board members were appointed in accordance with a new Trust Deed amended in November 2015, which reduced the maximum number of Trustees from 30 to 15. Some of the major cost drivers for BSA were salaries, digital agency fees and computer software. As a result of finalising the appointment of a panel of brand agencies toward the end of the first quarter, management had to defer some of the marketing deliverables that were going to be significant cost drivers during this period to the following quarter. This was the main contributor to the overall budget under-spending of 42.45%.

FPB and UNISA signed the Classifier Certificate Course Agreement and launched the course in December 2016. There were on-going efforts by these two institutions to publicise and market the course. The course aimed to professionalise classification of media content and was now available to all South Africans and the first student intake would be in June 2017. The course would be made available online and some of FPB’s counterparts in the Southern African Development Community (SADC) and on the continent already expressed interest to enrol their content classifiers. FPB also signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the Kenyan Film Classification Board and this enabled the two entities to forge regional cooperation in the area of online child protection as well as combating child trafficking, child sexual abuse material and to protect the African market from being flooded with illegal and unclassified content.

ICASA had an overall increase in Q1 performance from 33.3% in 2015/16 to 51% in 2016/17. In contrast, there was a decrease in Q2 performance from 67.7% in 2015/16 to 50% in 2016/17. On its compliance report, the procurement plan report for all transactions exceeding R500 000 was submitted to the National Treasury on time, with 22 projects budgeted for R57 million. Quarterly reports were submitted on time to both National Treasury and the Department of Communications. No unauthorised, irregular and wasteful expenditure was incurred during Q2.

Members asked questions around targets that were not met and funds that were spent. They were concerned about some of the projects these entities were supporting and whether these community projects could be self-sustainable in the long term. They were very concerned about the rural communities and whether the impact could reach to these disadvantaged communities. Members questioned some of the strategies used by entities which informed its mandates. They felt it was difficult to engage with entities as they had not received the actual Q1 and Q2 reports but only had the presentations to work from. The Chairperson urged the Department to submit reports for the narrative to be available before such meetings with entities. 

Meeting report

The Chairperson noted that this was the first meeting with the entities for this year. He welcomed everyone present. He was wondering whether it would be a quality engagement given the short amount of time allocated to the meeting and the fact that there were four entities which had to present. He suggested that in future things had to be done differently as it was not only about ticking boxes but having a thorough engagement. An additional disadvantage was that the Committee only received presentations from the entities and not the full reports. This compromised engagement and oversight. He raised the issue with the Acting Director-General before the meeting and requested an explanation as to why the information was not provided.

Ms V Van Dyk (DA) asked whether there was an update on the appointment of the Interim SABC Board as she heard there was some delay.

The Chairperson said the Committee would first deal with the items on the agenda and then talk about this. He requested members to send any issues they had to talk about a day before the meeting to be included in the agenda.

Briefing by Media Development and Diversity Agency (MDDA)
Ms Phelisa Nkomo, Board Chairperson, MDDA, said that there were some issues raised by the Committee in 2016 which the MDDA improved on. In respect of vacancies, the CEO position was permanently filled as of 1 January 2017. The four other critical positions of Company Secretary, Risk Specialist, Internal Audit Officer and Supply Chain Management Officer were also filled as of 1 January 2017. The Social Impact study would be completed prior to end of the financial year and the MDDA had started engaging the four mainstream print media houses in an effort to offer community media print an opportunity to operate with minimal interference and direct competition and also a meeting was held with the Competition Commission to address unfair competition.

Mr Trevor Khodza, Acting CFO, MDDA said that the performance of the agency was measured and reported for all its programmes which were Administration, Grant and Seed Funding, Advocacy and Lobbying, Capacity Building and Research and Development. He said that in a comparison of programme performance Q1 versus Q2 indicated that Q2 targets not achieved were mainly in Programme 1 and related to capacity limitations. However, the focus on filling vacancies would enable these targets to be achieved in future.

Mr Khodza explained that under Programme 1, sub-programme Human Resource Management, targets for filling of positions was not achieved. He said that a new organogram was approved by the Board in February 2016 to restructure the organogram in line with the new strategy. However, there was uncertainty over the total funding for 2016/17 and therefore the focus was on only those vacancies in the new organogram that could be covered by the funding already committed. Two major funders have now committed support and therefore the focus was now on filling vacant positions. He said most of the targets set under Human Resource Management were annual targets and would only be reported on in Q4.

Mr Khodza said that under Programme 1, sub-programme Monitoring and Evaluation, there was a variance of 20 targets not reached for Q2. These 20 monitoring projects could not be carried out due to capacity limitations. He said that as the Q1 target had been exceeded by 9 projects, 11 additional projects would be monitored in Q3 to ensure that the indicator was on track to achieve the annual target of 75. This would not impact the annual budget for this programme. Under sub-programme 1.3 which was Legal and Regulatory Affairs, a Contracts Management strategy was in place but per MDDA procedure was reviewed on an annual basis and would therefore be reported on in Q4. Under sub-programme 1.4 Financial Administration and Auxiliary Services, there was a positive increase in the percentage of acceptable variance between budgets versus expenditure. He said that overall there was a 22% increase as a result of an improved disbursement policy and procedures implemented in the current year to facilitate access to funds by beneficiary projects. The impact would be much less on the annual budget because MDDA would receive the annual transfers from the two major broadcast funders in Q3.

Mr Khodza said that under risk management and internal audit in sub-programme 1.5, the MDDA managed to hold one of two fraud prevention education events. The next one was planned to be carried out after the divisional risk assessments which would be completed in Q3. The annual target of an approved internal audit 3 year rolling plan was approved in August 2016. Under sub-programme 1.6 which was Information Management and Technology, all targets were achieved. MDDA approved its revised IT strategy and the Business Continuity Disaster Recovery Plan. He added that MDDA also trained all new users in Information Technology (IT) systems and applications and upgraded its Information and Communications Technology (ICT) infrastructure and firewall and antivirus.

Mr Khodza said that under Programme 2 sub-programme 2.1, which was Community Broadcast Media, the MDDA over-achieved all its targets except on the number of community radio stations supported for strengthening. The reason for this was because a number of applicants did not comply. They would be assisted by the MDDA on the compliance issues to enable them to resubmit to the Board in Q3. This would not impact the overall budget for the year. For Print and Digital Media sub-programme 2.2, all targets were met expect for the number of new community print projects funded. One project was deferred by the Board due to compliance issues. It would be assisted by the MDDA on the compliance issues which will enable them to also resubmit in Q3. He then gave a breakdown of community media projects supported per province and noted that two projects, one in broadcast and one in print, was approved for funding in the Northern Cape for Q3, namely Kuruman FM and Kuruman Chronicle.

Mr Khodza said that for Programme 3 most targets were achieved for Q1 and Q2, except for the media awards which was delayed pending the outcome of a study on awards for community-based media. A revamped media awards would be launched at the conclusion of the study in February 2017. Under programme 4 there were two targets not achieved and for programme 5 all targets were achieved.

Mr Khodza gave an outline of the financial information for the MDDA. On income, it was still waiting to receive a total of R23.4 million. These were contract funds due in Q3 which was 6 months after year end. Multichoice committed R25 million and the SABC committed R11 million to be received in Q3. On expenses, there was a variance of R11.8 million due to project approvals for Q1 which were submitted in the June 2016 Board meeting. Disbursements would commence after contract signing. Also, Q2 projects submitted in the September Board meeting and contracts were currently being signed off. He highlighted some actions taken by the MDDA as a result of issues raised by the Portfolio Committee in 2016. The MDDA was in the process of drawing up a strategy to intensify its support to disability projects and was also initiating a partnership with GenderLinks around Women in Media and Violence against Women. A focused training initiative on governance would be launched to enable the community media to participate in the policy discourse in the sector. He said that a partnership was entered into with SEDA on business enterprise development for the community-based media.

Mr Khodza said that MDDA formulated an audit dashboard to track progress against audit findings raised by the AG in the 2015/16 financial year. He said that as at the end of Q2 a total of 23 out of 36, which was 64%, of findings were addressed. Progress would be reported in Q3 and Q4 as crucial vacancies were filled during the remaining quarters. 

Discussion
Ms Van Dyk asked how the new organogram differed from the previous one. She wanted to know if community print and radio projects only got their funding from MDDA or if they had other sources of funding. How much money was spent each year on strengthening and how would these businesses learn to be self-sufficient. She wanted more information on community media to understand how funds were distributed as some were getting more than others.

Ms Nkomo replied that the model used which was a Board philosophy was that it was not a “one size fits all”. There were socio-economic linkages. The weaker the administration of local governance the more funds would be needed in that community. Therefore the difference in funding was related to looking at resources available.

Ms Themba Dlamini, CEO, MDDA added that this would be determined by a needs assessment process as required by applicants. In the combination of print and media, there was a lack of funding for print media. There was a pull-out from the big four supporters and there was a lack of funding for print.

Mr M Gungubele (ANC) wanted to know how the MDDA developed its Contracts Management strategy. He also noticed that only 50% of performance management contracts were signed. Why was this the case? Some of the percentages reported were confusing to him.

Mr Dlamini said that for every employee there was a performance contract signed. This figure referred to positions filled for the period under review. Only 50% of vacancies were filled in Q1 and Q2 and therefore only 50% of performance contracts were signed. In the future they would refrain from reporting in percentages. There would be more progress reported under Q3 and Q4.

Mr R Tseli (ANC) said that the presentation showed progress in terms of work being done. He saw that 15 new community radio and print media was funded by the MDDA and 14 old projects were strengthened through the funding. If MDDA continued to fund old projects while these existing projects continued to struggle it would create a problem. It was important to audit the community radio and print projects.

Ms Nkomo said that this was related to the issue of licensing due to the imposed moratorium. Community radio stations could not sustain themselves. The MDDA was in the process of pursuing social integration for the community radio and print media.

Mr Tseli noted that 23 of the 36 issues raised by the Auditor-General was addressed but he would have liked to know which ones have been attended to and resolved and which ones not.

Ms Nkomo said that the specific detailed information would be made available to the Committee.

The Chairperson wanted to know what informed the approval of the new organogram. Was there an assessment conducted where the outcomes fed into the strategy?

Ms Nkomo said that when MDDA appeared before the Committee in a previous meeting, the MDDA Act was old and had to be reviewed. A social impact study was done and it measured whether projects funded made a difference. She explained that the MDDA then discovered that its mandate defined two critical aspects which were media transfer and diversity. This informed the strategy.

Mr M Gungubele wanted to acknowledge the improvement of language in the vision, mission and values of MDDA.

Briefing by Brand South Africa (BSA)
Ms Alice Puoane, CFO, BSA, said that a new Board was appointed and assumed office on 1 June 2016 after having obtained Letters of Authority as per the Master of the High Court, in terms of the Deeds of Trust. Board members were appointed in accordance with a new Trust Deed amended in November 2015, which reduced the maximum number of Trustees from 30 to 15. Three Trustees who served on the previous Board were retained in order to ensure Board continuity. The new Board was inducted during the first quarter in order to acquaint its members with new governance environment in accordance with good corporate governance practice.

Ms Puoane gave an outline of the workforce statistics, gender profile, staff movement and the organisational structure. BSA currently had a vacancy rate of 4%. For Q1 performance, BSA achieved 87% of its targets. For human capital to achieve its targets the HR plan had to be approved by the Board. She explained that the tenure of the previous Board expired on 12 March 2016 and the new Board was appointed on 12 April 2016. However, the new Board was only registered with the Master of the High Court on 1 June 2016 so all Board meetings commenced during the Q2 period. On programme 1, under the finance category, the target for the business case funding model was deleted from the business plan during the mid-term review. The quarterly review for the risk assessment could not take place as the target was required to be in alignment with the strategic planning process, therefore the target was deferred to Q2. A risk workshop was only scheduled for 11 July 2016 following finalisation of the strategic and annual performance plan.

Ms Puoane presented the finances of BSA and indicated some of the major cost drivers, which were salaries, digital agency fees and computer software. As a result of finalising the appointment of a panel of brand agencies toward the end of the first quarter, management had to defer some of the marketing deliverables that were going to be significant cost drivers during this period to the following quarter. This was the main contributor to the overall budget under-spending of 42.45% over and above the field research studies that were currently on-going that have not yet required cash outflows. Under Supply Chain Management (SCM) for Q1, the process of renewing and extending the office lease contract for an additional five years, from July 2016, was at finalisation stage. Service providers were appointed during the first quarter to offer the following services to Brand SA:
- Development and production of the 2015/16 annual report at R300 127;
- Facilitation of strategic planning sessions and production of strategic and annual performance plan ending 2020 at R191 629;
- Brand agencies to assist on the execution of approved business plan deliverables as per approved and allocated budget

Ms Puoane gave the performance results per programme. Under programme 1, BSA achieved 14 of 19 targets (73% achieved). Four of the targets not met were the HR plan approval, implementation of the Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) solution, a business case to secure funding and the strategic risk register review to mitigate risks. Under programme 2, BSA met 19 of its 20 targets (95% achieved). She said that the one target not met was the implementation of an online knowledge hub. Under programme 3 all targets were met for Q1.

Ms Puoane presented the Q2 performance results. BSA achieved 39 of 46 targets (84% achieved). One of the targets not met was the business case approval by the Board. This target required the appointment of a service provider for the business case funding model but the Board had since reviewed this target to allow the organisation to engage in partnerships as a matter of course without necessarily diversifying its revenue stream by asking for donations from the public sector. The target was since removed from the Business Plan and communicated to the department. Another target not met was the submission of an application for establishment of foreign offices in China. Instead, management was to engage the Department of International Relations and Cooperative Governance (DIRCO) to assist with the Government to Government approach once the new Country Manager for China was appointed. Also, the vacancy rate at BSA increased to 5.88% in Q2.

Ms Puoane said that for SCM under Q2, Base Media (Pty) Ltd was awarded a three month contract through a deviation process for media monitoring and analysis services for the total value of R373 863. A tender process was currently underway for a three year contract. No irregular expenses were incurred for the period under review and the implementation of recommendations from AGSA was continuous. In particular, the update of the entity’s supplier database and the planned verification of declarations of interest were addressed. On Programme 2, the BSA met 19 of its 20 targets (95% achieved). She said that the one target not achieved was the management of digital content on the BSA website. The framework for website redesign was developed but was deferred to Q3. She said that under Programme 3 the BSA achieved all of its targets.

Discussion
Mr W Madisha (COPE) said that he was happy with the presentation and work done. He wanted to know whether it was legal to retain the three trustees who served on the previous Board onto this one. Was it fair and policy driven? He wanted to know at which levels were Africans employed since it may be majority at cleaner level for example. He agreed with the structure of targets but wanted to know the timeframe to achieving those targets not yet achieved.

Ms Khanyisile Khanyile, Board Chairperson, BSA, said that it was legal to have trustees remain so that there was not a complete exodus of knowledge from the Board. This process does not break the Trust Deed.

Mr Jonty Tshipa, Director: Corporate Services, BSA, said that staff were predominantly African, in all levels. The timelines for targets were quarterly or annual.

Ms Van Dyk asked for clarity on the amount of R300 127 for printing of annual reports and if that was accurate how many of them were printed.

Mr Tshipa said that BSA received value for money for the annual reports, as the service provider had to collate, write and print the annual reports. A total of 500 copies were printed.

Ms Van Dyk said that on pages 29 and 31 it indicated the number of targets achieved but it does not state which targets were met. She also wanted to know if the increase in number of positions from 45 to 53 was as a result of a new organogram.

Mr Tshipa said that BSA had an old organogram; it did not change since 2014. Also, it did not have a high staff turnover rate as vacancies were low.

Mr Gungubele said that the problem was that most things in the presentation were dealing with internal issues. It made oversight difficult. He contested the language used on page 3 where it stated “the what” as the outcome. It could not be an outcome since outcomes came to exist as to what you do. The rest was well-explained. The basic reporting document would have been useful to explain the strategy. He highlighted that it was of interest to the Committee what changes were happening because of BSA. On page 16 of the presentation BSA should have broken down the targets per programme for the Committee to evaluate on the basis of targets achieved.

Ms Khanyile said that Mr Gungubele was correct and the detail was contained in the Q1 and Q2 reports.

Ms M Matshoba (ANC) was happy that the Board of trustees was reduced to 15. She wanted clarity on the Board governance as it did not indicate how many of these 15 were in executive management positions or to which internal committees they belonged. She was happy that 100% of targets were achieved on under Programme 3.

Ms Khanyile said that the Board of trustees was evenly distributed in all three sub-committees of the Board.

Mr Tseli said that he was happy with the presentation. Part of the mandate of BSA was to develop appropriate responses and to interface meaningfully with stakeholders who drive or influence the nation brand reputation. From a communication point of view, what did BSA do with the responses it received? How did it make sure responses developed were implemented? The 42.8% underspent was a serious concern.

Ms Khanyile said that BSA made sure it responded to the needs of stakeholders by engaging with them and finding out what is the reputation of South Africa; how do others perceive the country. Based on that BSA developed strategies to implement successful branding linked to the nation and what it had to offer people.

Briefing by Films and Publications Board (FPB)
Ms Palesa Kadi, Shared Services Executive, FPB, presented the organisational challenges and achievements. She said that a challenge experienced by FPB was a server crash and this had an impact on the business but the system was currently stable, awaiting an upgrade. Another challenge was the IT infrastructure undergoing a complete upgrade as the tender was awarded in Q3. There were also low fees collection due to the decline in the physical distribution of DVD’s and the current tariff structure had to be reviewed to combat this. There were some achievements which the FPB managed for Q1 and Q2. FPB and UNISA signed the Classifier Certificate Course Agreement and launched the course in December 2016. There were on-going efforts by these two institutions to publicise and market the course. The course aimed to professionalise classification of media content and was now available to all South Africans and the first student intake would be in June 2017. The course would be made available online and some of FPB’s counterparts in SADC and on the continent already expressed interest to enrol their content classifiers. She added that FPB was working with other educational institutions, private sector and industry bodies to encourage enrolment.

Ms Kadi continued with the achievements of the FPB. She said that the FPB signed a MoU with the Kenyan Film Classification Board and this enabled the two entities to forge regional cooperation in the area of online child protection as well as combating child trafficking, child sexual abuse material and to protect the African market from being flooded with illegal and unclassified content. The FPB also forged partnership with Media Monitoring Africa, Google SA and the South African Communications Forum on digital literacy programmes. Through this partnership, Google launched a competition for 10 Gauteng schools. Two winning learners and one FPB official was flown by Google to attend a programme at Silicon Valley in the USA together with a FPB representative. Also, FPB was elected to the INHOPE Board in the Netherlands. She then gave achievements in relation to child protection initiatives. In 2014/15, FPB developed the Educators Training Manual to assist Life Orientation teachers with skills on how to deal with cyber safety related matters in a class room. She said that in 2015/16, FPB partnered with the Department of Basic Education, Illembe, Sekhukhune and Mopani district to pilot the manual with the schools in these districts.

Ms Kadi spoke about the SAPS referrals. In Q1 SAPS referred about 12 dockets to FPB for analysis. A total of 241 579 items of content was analysed and submitted to SAPS and four dockets were confirmed to contain child pornography. 80 000 items of content were found to contain pornographic material and about 22 000 confirmed to have child pornography on the analysed dockets. The analysis reports were compiled and submitted to SAPS as well as the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA). These cases were still in court and an additional 42 000 items of content suspected of having child pornography would be analysed. In Q2 a total of 12 cases were received from the hotline and another 303 cases were referred through the Pro-child website. Two cases were confirmed to contain child pornography and were referred to SAPS. She said that in Q2 SAPS also referred four new dockets to FPB for evidence and verification and Child-line referred two cases of child pornography to FPB for analysis and referral to SAPS. She added that the FPB had an on-going relationship with INHOPE, SAPS, and other government departments such as the Department of Social Development, Department of Justice and Constitutional Development, Department of Basic Education as well as child protection organisations such as Child-line and Child Welfare South Africa.

Ms Kadi said that the outreach and education activities for Q1 were that the FPB:
- Exhibited at the Companies and Intellectual Property Commission in Gauteng
- Participated in the Cell C Take A Girl Child to Work initiative in Gauteng
- Conducted outreach activities in the Western Cape for Child Protection Week
- Hosted two workshops on cyber safety for Web Rangers in Gauteng
- Participated in the Durban International Film Festival and concluded outreach programmes to 14 schools in KZN and
- Hosted an outreach activity at the Soweto Western College with 150 students

She said that for Q2 FPB also had outreach and public education activities such as:
- Participation in the Nelson Mandela day 67 minutes programme
- Panel discussions with LGBTI communities’ dialogues
- Exhibitions at five Ministers Imbizo’s
- Supported annual representative council leaders’ summit in the North West
- In Cinema Activations in Gauteng and the Western Cape
- Child welfare global assembly panel representation with UNICEF and
- Engagement with the Namibia Broadcasting Corporation

Ms Kadi said that FPB had a fully functional fraud prevention hotline and in Q1 four calls were received. Two of these matters were referred to SAPS, one matter was just an inquiry and the last matter was awaiting further information. In Q2 only two calls were received and both matters were being investigated. She then gave an update on the online distributor compliance status. She said that four of the eight online distributors were not registered with FPB which were Blackberry, Microsoft Windows App Store, Netflix and MTN VU. She explained that Blackberry had a contract which expired in January 2016 and it was not renewed. Microsoft Windows App Store indicated that they did not need to register for content distribution as they were a global company. Netflix was refusing to make the annual license fee payment and MTN VU was refusing to sign a contract with regards to the license fee. She indicated that FPB was reviewing possible litigation options against these four online distributors.

Ms Kadi presented the FPB’s fight against piracy statistics for Q1 and Q1. In Q1 a total of 21 raids were conducted in partnership with SAPS in three provinces which were Western Cape, Gauteng and KZN. A number of 8 cases were opened and three arrests were made. In total 10 345 discs were confiscated. In Q2 a total of 19 raids were conducted with SAPS in Western Cape, Gauteng and KZN. A number of 17 cases were opened and 11 arrests were made. A total of 11 170 discs were confiscated and these were estimated at a value of R558 000. She also outlined the turnaround times for queries and titles for classification. She said that in Q1 a total of 170 queries were received and 94% of these were resolved within the 10 days turnaround time. FPB received a total of 452 titles for classification and of these 96% adhered to the 10 days turnaround time. For Q2 a total of 359 queries were received. FPB resolved 95.3% of these within the 10 day timeframe. The total number of titles received for classification in Q2 was 515 titles and 92% of these were classified within the 10 day turnaround period. 

Ms Kadi gave a summary of the classification submission trends. She said that these trends highlighted that the number of submissions over the nine year period were on a consistent downward slope. Genres that decreased the most were Erotica and Interactive games. She highlighted that there were various factors which contributed to the decline and some included:
- Internet penetration and the growth of digital access to Film and Game content
- Growth of Pay TV market (post 2010 World Cup)
- Growth of the middle class and urban rural development which meant people could afford digital content downloads and going to the cinema
- Erotica and Interactive games were moving online and the FPB could not regulate the platform at this stage and
- Consumer preferences shifted as convenience was the key

Ms Kadi said that these trends had implications for FPB. The FPB wanted to push for the amendments to the legislation to empower the organisation to regulate the online distribution space. It sought to realign the business model to suit the emerging needs of the industry. The FPB had to promote co-regulation and self-regulation through consumer education going forward. It wanted to strengthen partnerships with industry both local and international. The FPB would also ensure ICT infrastructure upgrades and capacity building and use the UNISA classification course to strategically position the organisation within the industry. She then gave an outline of the workforce profile and indicated that there were no person with disability employed, only one intern, but that the FPB identified an action plan to address this by identifying a position to be filled with a person with a disability. Recruiters who specialise with targeted recruitment were engaged with in Q3 and the planned appointment would be made in Q4.

Ms Kadi said with regards to finances, a total of 21% of the budget was spent in Q1 and that went up to 42.13% in Q2. FPB also developed action plans for 2016/17 related to the audit finding by the Auditor-General. Actions plans were developed for all 11 findings. Overall, FPB achieved 62% of its performance targets for Q1 and 72% of its targets for Q2.

Discussion

Ms Van Dyk wanted to know whether the educators training manual will be implemented in all schools. She wanted to know how long it took for FPB to analyse and resolve complaints related to child pornography. She also asked why FPB was using a recruitment agency to recruit persons with disability and why these positions were not openly advertised.

Mr Sipho Risiba, COO, FPB, said that the educators training manual was currently being piloted in three districts with a long term plan to roll it out across the country. FPB was working within a timeframe of 10 days to resolve complaints but found this challenging and have therefore decided to capacitate it investigative unit even further to deal with complaints adequately.

Ms Thoko Mpulwana, Board Chairperson, FPB, said that recruiting persons with disabilities was a challenge. The positions would be filled but then it would become vacant again. Under the Department of Social Development there was a network of persons with disabilities which the FPB made use of. Some positions to be filled would be given priority but it was still a challenge.

Mr Madisha said that he was once a teacher for 25 years in the rural areas. The FPB spoke about child protection and the number of children getting raped. It was not doing enough in the rural areas and the focus should be more on those areas where children were more vulnerable and being used. From listening to the radio he picked up that South Africa was in the top ten of countries with the highest rape statistics in the world. He recommended that FPB should therefore not only visit the urban city centres.

Ms Mpulwana said that with more people and more resources FPB could reach out to the rural areas but it was trying to strengthen its partnerships to reach out.

Mr Tseli said that FPB gave a good presentation. He suggested that in the future the achievements shown should include targets.

Ms Mpulwana said that they would in the future they would report on achievements per target as well as challenges.

Ms Matshoba said that in Nyanga there were high levels of crime and she was aware that FPB visited the area to advocate for changes to take place. She applauded them for their work.

The Chairperson wanted to know more about the partnership with UNISA and how it was being advertised. Did it reach out to rural areas as well?

Ms Mpulwana said that UNISA had a network both locally and internationally reaching out to the SADC regions and within the African Union. FPB was working with South African communications such as MTN and Google to advertise the course. FPB would like to have a better footprint in the country especially the rural areas but the country was big and the resources little. She highlighted that FPB recognised that the penetration of technology was bigger now in the rural areas because everyone had a cell phone and was exposed.

Briefing by Independent Communications Authority of South Africa (ICASA)
Mr Pakamile Pongwana, CEO, ICASA, gave an outline of targets achieved per programme for Q1. In terms of revenue collection for Q1, ICASA only managed to collect 8.5% of its revenue. The bulk of this was from the allocation by the Department of Communications and other income which totalled R121 million of the total of R425 million. He said that expenditure on the bulk of this money went to prior accruals and commitments. ICASA underperformed on its budget by 2% in terms of quarterly target of 25%. He gave an outline of targets achieved for Q2 for Programme 1. Out of a total of 37 targets, ICASA met 16 targets. For Programme 2, only one target was not achieved and for Programme 3, three targets were not achieved. On programme 4 a total of nine targets were not achieved, for programme 5 two targets were not achieved and for programme 6 only one target was not achieved. Overall there was an increase in Q1 performance from 33.3% in 2015/16 to 51% in 2016/17. In contrast, there was a decrease in Q2 performance from 67.7% in 2015/16 to 50% in 2016/17.

Mr Pakamile spoke about ICASA’s revenue report for Q2. He said that the Authorities Grant was received on a quarterly basis from the Department of Communications and a total amount of R218 million was received to date from the Department. This total collected to date was 53% of the total budgeted amount. With regards to investment income, a total amount of R11 million was earned to date from investment. The total earned to date was 104% of the total budgeted amount and was mainly attributed to the investment of surplus funds approved by National Treasury for retention in June 2016. ICASA also had other income of R201 111 which comprised of insurance claims settled received from the insurance company for the Block A fire which happened on 30 May 2016. The Authority’s year to date revenue as at end of September 2016 was around R238 million and this amount was inclusive of deferred grants of R8.5 million realized during the period. The total earned to date was 56.1% of the total annual budget.

Mr Pakamile gave the expenditure amounts for Q2. He gave a breakdown of expenditure per item and  summarised the expenditure by stating that the ICASA’s year to date total expenditure including prior year accruals, capital costs and employee costs was R207 101 719 against the annual budgeted amount of R414 million which meant a total spending of 49.9% of its total annual budget.

With regards to its compliance report, the procurement plan report for all transactions exceeding R500 000 was submitted to the National Treasury on time, with 22 projects budgeted for R57 200 000. Quarterly reports were submitted on time to both National Treasury and the Department of Communications. No unauthorised, irregular and wasteful expenditure was incurred during Q2.

Discussion
Ms Van Dyk said that the statistical data in the presentation did not correlate correctly. She wanted to know if the moratorium on licensing had been lifted. ICASA stated that it took 3 days to resolve complaints but she knew of a few complaints that were older than 1 year. She noted that a quarter of the total budget was spent but ICASA only achieved 41% of its targets.

Mr Rubben Mohlaloga, Acting Chairperson, ICASA, said that the moratorium was still in place subject to finalising the review on communication licenses.

Mr Pakamile added that this issue was related to the availability of frequency. He said that targets not achieved were on governance and financing but the exact targets were not included in the presentation. Some complaints took a long time to resolve if there were technical or investigative issues around them.

The Chairperson thanked all presenters for their input. He urged the Department to submit all Q1 and Q2 reports from the entities as it was submitted. He said that in future only two entities would present on one day to allow sufficient time for engagement.

The meeting was adjourned.

 

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