MDDA & Brand SA Annual Performance Plan, with Minister & Deputy Minister

Meeting report

Mr M Kalako (ANC) was elected as Acting Chairperson. He welcomed the new Minister of Communications and remarked that the Committee was hosting the Minister for the first time.

Minister of Communications address on the MDDA
The Minister of Communications, Ms Ayanda Dlodlo, introduced the Deputy Minister of Communications, Ms Tandi Mahambehlala, and the MDDA team led by its board chairperson, Ms Phelisa Nkomo. The Minister stated that the objective of the MDDA was to ensure that all citizens could access information in a language of their choice, transform media access, ownership and control patterns in the country and this dealt with radical economic transformation, otherwise known as inclusive growth. MDDA is charged with providing financial and non-financial media support to communities in the country. Community media had a dual role of being a mirror to reflect the community and a window to allow its activities to be seen in the outside world while giving access to and disseminating information.

In the current financial year MDDA would complete its social impact study to determine the effect of its funding model since inception, DoC would focus on quality matters that relate to community media and broadcasting while MDDA would fund all the projects. Hence MDDA plans to create 150 jobs under the Medium Term Strategic Framework for 2014-2019 in the broadcasting sector. MDDA has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the South African Agency for Science and Technology Advancement (SAASTA) for training on how to report on scientific matters, discussions are on-going for funding from SAASTA; partnerships are being forged with the National School of Government and other institutions to enable MDDA to train quality skilled personnel for the sector. MDDA has also partnered with the Small Enterprise Development Agency (SEDA) on business enterprise development for mentoring projects in its provincial offices. She acknowledged the visit of the Committee to the agency on 28 March, 2017, the instruction to respond to questions raised, the request for an update on its projects and a briefing by the agency during the meeting of 5 May, 2017.

MDDA has been supporting community media for 13 years, with considerable transformation through issuing of 271 licences for community radios stations and 246 licences for community print projects and approximately two thirds of these projects were spread across rural areas. The challenges with community media include lack of governance and management skills; reliance on volunteers for community programs which affects program content; the non-existent print sector which comprises mainly of niche publications due to withdrawal of funds from the print sector which makes it difficult for MDDA to compete for editorial advertising funds and fund the community print project. Presently, the broadcast sector is required by law to fund community media while the print sector is not, hence the community print project is grossly underfunded. It has not been able to meet the demands for support of funding numerous applications for community media especially in rural areas hence she suggested that without increased funding, MDDA would not be able to fulfil the MDDA Act and Section 16 of the Constitution.

Issues to be addressed during the brief would include the lack of advertising funding, lack of governance and accountability of the MDDA board, list of members of the board, filling of vacancies in MDDA, amendment of MDDA Act to ensure it reflected the development that had taken place in society since its enactment in 2002 and the lack of available radio frequency spectrum until the full roll out of the Digital Terrestrial Television (DTT) migration program by Independent Communications Authority of South Africa (ICASA).

In conclusion, Minister Dlodlo assured the Committee that the current unacceptable situation where the MDDA board is heading the various administrative units of MDDA led by the board chairperson as a caretaker had been resolved by the appointment of the Director General of Government Communication and Information System (GCIS) Mr Donald Liphoko as the MDDA Acting CEO. The DoC has advertised for posts throughout the portfolio for qualified personnel and MDDA would be under the Deputy Minister’s office.

Media Development & Diversity Agency (MDDA) Annual Performance Plan
MDDA board chairperson and caretaker, Ms Phelisa Nkomo, introduced her team which comprised of board member, Mr Musa Sishange, and the management committee of MDDA. She responded to issues raised by the Committee during its March oversight visit which included what MDDA was doing on media transformation; plans for new regulations based on the ICASA moratorium; methodologies on monitoring and evaluation of its projects; the review of MDDA Act; progress on the well advanced Social Impact study which would be completed by the end of first quarter of 2017/18; engagements with the four mainstream print media houses to ensure that community print media could operate without direct competition; content diversity which included signing an MoU with SAASTA on science and technology reporting training, drawing up strategies to intensify support for people living with disability, initiating partnerships with GenderLinks around women in media and violence against women, the AIP Conference on Women in Community Publishing, training on reporting on gender violence and also exploring partnership with children-based content organisations; strategies to sustain MDDA such as a partnership with SEDA on business enterprise development mentoring projects using its provincial offices; engagements with South African Local Government Association (SALGA) on supporting community media through advertising and the use of municipal premises; engagements with Sentech on transmission costs; piloting of MDDA outreach/public media literacy campaigns in two provinces; and public engagement programs that were supported by Ministerial Imbizos during 2016/2017.

She identified the institutional challenges of MDDA to include transformation of MDDA into a knowledge based organisation, the request by MDDA to Parliament to fill the vacant board positions to make the board quorate, the focus on filling executive positions including Chief Executive Officer and Chief Financial Officer and the Organizational Development/Renewal Intervention by the board. She accepted the intervention of the Minister in appointing an Acting CEO because it was unacceptable for the board to perform the operational activities of the agency and fulfil a supervisory role at the same time. MDDA would be hosting interviews for the CEO position on 12 May 2017. The board had also lost two members (one had received an industry position and the other had received a position in the DoC and she felt that there would be issues of conflict of interest). She solicited the Committee’s assistance in filling positions on the board. The board had committed to having the post of CEO filled by the end of the first quarter of 2017/18. MDDA staff had been encouraged to develop their capacities to deliver in the short, medium and long term. She outlined programs MDDA has entered into to strengthen its institutional capacity. She apologised for not meeting with the Committee when it was invited as a result of the Deputy Minister’s memo. She handed over to her colleagues to brief the Committee on the various APP specific targets.

Ms Cheryl Langbridge, MDDA Marketing and Communication Manager, highlighted the external impact that MDDA hoped to achieve in community media through Program 2 (grant and seed funding) which comprised of community broadcast media, print and digital media and the monitoring and evaluation of projects. She outlined the external risks associated with Program 2. Targets were lower than performance hence MDDA had negotiated with operators to achieve its targets and emphasized that MDDA had medium term targets for enabling print and digital media growth to establish an online presence. She discussed the strategies and programs for building MDDA brand under Program 3 (partnerships, public awareness and advocacy) which were enhancing digital migration, engaging stakeholders on policy and strategy, external publications (newsletters, annual reports and social integration publication), publicity campaigns (outreaches and media awards, impact studies were being carried out on media awards to make it more relevant) and review and implementation of communications plan. The planned targets for Program 4 (capacity building and sector development) for the next three financial years were noted such as management and capacity building partnerships, training interventions and workshops and enhanced media literacy. Similarly she outlined the medium term targets for innovation, research and development and the four strategic objectives for Program 1 (governance and administration) which was extremely vital for the agency to achieve its objectives.

Mr Trevor Kuodza, MDDA Acting Chief Financial Officer, stated that expected total revenue for 2017/18 was about R66 million. The highest anticipated revenue source for the year from commercial broadcast media (48%) had a high risk element and fluctuated from year to year because it was based on a percentage of their annual turnover. MDDA had increased stakeholder engagements and maintained a good level of relationship with the funders. He remarked that funders have observed that most of the staff it employed came from community radio stations hence funders supported MDDA. However the situation was different with the print media as indicated by the Minister of Communication. Presently, there was no anticipated collection of revenue from the print media although MDDA had engaged with commercial print media and still did because the regulation of print media did not support the funding of MDDA. The DoC supported MDDA with funding but MDDA recognised that budget allocation was tight. It welcomed the support of the Committee to assist in soliciting for increased funding to achieve its mandates. The traditional funding model in terms of MDDA Act required that funds be used for specific purposes. For instance if broadcast media funds MDDA, it expected the funds to be allocated to 90% broadcast initiatives. Hence in terms of the Act MDDA found it difficult to adequately respond to the changes in the media sector because information is disseminated through the digital media and MDDA does not have specific allocations to achieve digital dissemination in the current Act. Therefore, MDDA requested the Committee’s intervention on the review of the Act. The board had sought investments in capacity building, advocacy and research. MDDA had allocated amounts to these programs to ensure that there was continual growth in the sector in skills building and retention and to ensure that the work MDDA performed in advocacy and lobbying benefited the community in the amounts received for community media to be sustainable.

The board chairperson highlighted the immediate areas of interventions needed by MDDA. She requested that the Committee assist in getting active community participation from constituencies, government advertising, print media regulation, an increased national treasury allocation, a review of MDDA Act and assist with fair competition for commercial advertisement regulation.

The Minister handed over to the Deputy Minister for comments as her office was responsible for MDDA.

Deputy Minister of Communications, Ms Tandi Mahambehlala, thanked the Committee for allowing her office to interact with the MDDA because it was the only agency under her office that had not responded to her call to give updates on its status. According to the MDDA Act the board was supposed to have nine members and required a majority to be quorate. Currently the board was no longer quorate and could not make any legal binding decisions, nor instruct the Executive or the management to carry out any instruction hence it would be illegal to carry out the mandate and responsibility of hosting interviews on 12 May 2017 as stated by the MDDA board chairperson in her brief.

The Minister of Communications reminded the Committee that the MDDA board chairperson had informed the Committee that the MDDA board could not form a quorum and had requested that the Committee speed up the process of bringing in new board members.

Discussion
Ms P Van Damme (DA) congratulated the Minister Dlodlo on her appointment, remarked that the Committee would support the Minister and wished her good luck in accomplishing her duties. She expressed happiness that an Acting CEO had been appointed in MDDA because it was not right for the board chairperson to perform the duties of CEO. She commended the board that interviews had been scheduled for a permanent CEO. She asked for clarity on the date that the former CEO resigned, the date that the request for an Acting CEO came to the Minister’s office. There seemed to be a trend of CEOs resigning from MDDA and asked MDDA to state how many CEOs had left MDDA and explain why CEOs were leaving MDDA.

She noted that according to the Deputy Minister of Communications the board was illegal because a quorum was not formed. The MDDA Act states six of the members are recommended by Parliament while the other three are independently appointed by the President. Of the remaining four board members, she asked MDDA to state those board members appointed by the President and those appointed on advice of Parliament, to ensure that the Committee knew how many positions it needed to fill.

Ms Van Damme observed that in terms of the ICASA 2015 moratorium on community radio licence applications, she was happy that the new Minister of Communications supported encryption as against the views of the previous Minister, Ms Faith Muthambi, and the SABC. She asked if the matter would still be pursued in the Constitutional Courts since the DoC, and the Ministry in particular, had taken a different position on encryption. She remarked that there was a need for an investigation either by the SABC Interim Board as part of the forensic investigation into why unencrypted digital migration was followed, particularly in relation with Multichoice, and why money was wasted in pursuing an agenda that was against party policy. She advised MDDA to do research on the proliferation of fake news as part of research into media trends because MDDA needed to play a leading role in media broadcasting. Government needed to encourage community media by placing adverts in its media offerings.

Mr M Gungubele (ANC) joined his colleagues in welcoming the new Minister, commended her interventions in the DoC and especially commended her for the decisive action on SABC and making clear distinctions on the role of the SABC board. He stated that the Minister needed to deal with the challenge of inconsistency in the dissemination of information by DoC and its agencies. Where there were contradictions, the Minister needed to find out why instead of disagreeing with its agencies publicly, to enhance confidence in the DoC . He expressed happiness that the Minister from her remarks had spent time looking at what was happening in the MDDA which showed her good leadership skills.

He disagreed with the language used in the presentation such as on page 11, outcomes should be the changes to society not the actions performed at the agency. On page 12 he disagreed with the language of the situational analysis because MDDA did not motivate why interventions were needed. Similarly, he disagreed with page 13 because the desired state of the society was to motivate why interventions where needed and suggested that MDDA needed to articulate the desired state in a way that the Committee could intervene. He agreed that the alignment of MDDA with DoC on page 14 was vital, commended MDDA and stated that some agencies did not recognise alignment points with their departments. He requested that MDDA clarify what it meant by ‘mitigating leadership and internal capacity challenges’ and disagreed with the way the challenges were articulated. He disagreed with the way the strategic objectives (page 19) and key outputs (page 21) were articulated and asked MDDA to clarify what interventions were being undertaken to ensure that MDDA could measure this against the baseline stated on page 27. He asked MDDA how grant and seed funding could be regarded as an output.

The Chairperson observed that the Committee was not technical therefore it was easy to misunderstand the language used by MDDA. For instance from page 11, Outcome 6 should refer to how MDDA aligned itself with the goals and objectives of the NDP by stating what MDDA was going to do but the slide looked as if a line was taken from the NDP. The essence of Government creating agencies was to address the negative situations happening in society. However he acknowledged that the departments were forced to use certain templates by National Treasury and the Auditor General to account for its APP but asked MDDA to answer the questions asked.

Ms V Van Dyk (DA) welcomed the Minister and stated that the Committee looked forward to working with the Minister and Deputy Minister. She asked MDDA to state the two pilot provinces that would host the MDDA outreach on media awareness and literacy, explain why it chose these two provinces, give an update on these programs and what it wanted to achieve with the outreach. On page 21 MDDA stated that 19 radio stations had been approved. She asked how ICASA with its moratorium accepted the approval and if licences had been issued for the 19 community radio stations. She asked about the budget allocated towards strengthening the 20 community radio stations and why community radio stations were not sustainable. She asked when the strategic vacancies such as CFO and Chief Operating Officer (COO) would be filled, how the human resources department carried out its function when there was no HR manager or HR officer, and why the research manager position was still vacant even though research was vital. What did MDDA meant by ‘number of projects from online presence’ on page 22? She asked it to explain how 198 jobs were created in the community broadcast sector in 2016/17 on page 21 and confirm if the 198 jobs were new; to state the research projects undertaken and to confirm what was revised in the Strategic Plan.

Ms N Tolashe (ANC) congratulated the new Minister of Communications on her decisions to move the country forward. She expressed her concern about the implication of the illegality of filling vacancies as stated by the Deputy Minister and asked for clarification on the statement. She noted the challenges of the template; asked the Minister to give a time frame on when the positions will be filled; suggested that inter-governmental relationships should be included under monitoring and evaluation. She stated that MDDA had not fully explained the engagements with Media24. She asked the meaning of AIP and that MDDA locate other organisations working on gender violence and child molestation in the rural areas to ensure full collaboration, give examples of the outreach content in the two pilot provinces earmarked so that the Committee would understand why the two provinces were chosen. The CFO should give more information on what MDDA is doing to improve the finances of the agency despite the challenges it is facing. She asked if the implementation of impact study and review of the stakeholder engagement policy and plan was really a performance indicator. She asked for the plans and time frames to secure additional external funding from the private sector and other funders.

Mr R Tseli (ANC) also congratulated the Minister and promised that the Committee would support the DoC in its undertakings, asked MDDA to address issues raised by the DA on challenges with community radio to ensure that the Committee knew municipalities, departments and agencies supported community radio; observed that the print media was included as part of the its Strategic Plan but that MDDA had not mentioned objectives that address print media in its presentation; give updates on recent issues that affected the Competition Commission judgement (page 7); clarify the area that direct jobs would be created in the community broadcast sector and explain the role of MDDA on community radio governance challenges.

The Chairperson noted that MDDA spoke about engagements with Media24. He asked MDDA if it had engaged with independent media and to state which independent media houses had withdrawn their contributions and why – so that the Committee could engage with the independent media houses on behalf of MDDA. He clarified the Deputy Minister’s statement on the board acting illegally to ensure that it was not misinterpreted. He said the MDDA was not to blame and the Committee would accelerate the filling of board positions to assist operations at MDDA but asked if a quorate board had approved the Strategic Plan because if a quorum was formed, the Minister had to only endorse the Strategic Plan.

The Minister replied that governance had been dealt with in her opening remarks and in the body of the presentation but emphasized training collaboration with SAASTA and institutions of higher learning to address issues of governance.

Minister Dlodlo stated that she would make comments on the encryption policy which was vital as it assisted in putting out content, after she had confirmed her party policy. She was not sure when the CEO resigned but had received information on the resignation after the Strategic Planning session two weeks ago after being informed by the Deputy Minister. She responded by appointing Mr Donald Liphoko immediately. She did not know why CEOs were resigning; assured the Committee that a quorum was formed when the Strategic Plan and APP was adopted; and agreed that synergy and consistency was needed to achieve DoC goals. Sometimes the DoC had conflicting messages but the Department has responded by re-constituting a forum that existed in the past to meet once a month on the consistency of messages both internally and externally and there would be a press conference through the SABC. Vacant posts have been identified, but filling vacant positions takes time; however; within the next month MDDA would report on its progress. Page 11 addressed the NDP, Outcome 6 related to how MDDA was aligned to NDP goals and what MDDA would do to achieve the NDP goal. Page 16 addresses how MDDA mitigated on leadership and internal capacity,

The Deputy Minister stated that Parliament was empowered to take decisions on the vacancies based on legal opinions. Her office wrote to the Committee to clarify the situation of entities under her and the response had been documented. Two entities responded but MDDA did not respond. The letter sent by her office stated that all operations in the agency should stop until the entity had given an update on its operations but the letter did not say that the agency could not respond to Parliament.

Ms Nkomo, MDDA board chairperson, replied that the standards/template of Treasury were binding on the entity but in future the agency would improvise on the format for the Committee; secondment of the Acting CEO Mr Donald Liphoko was dated 22 April 2017, the Minister responded immediately and stated that MDDA did not have a COO, CFO and a CEO. The CEO resigned on 28 February, 2017, the board met on 1 March  and a letter was sent to the Minister on 2 March 2017. Correspondences to the Minister follows protocol, the letter of 22 April 2017 refers to the letter of 2 March 2017. She clarified that MDDA had not refused to see the Deputy Minister but MDDA had received a message to meet the Deputy Minister the next day at a few minutes to 4.00pm and MDDA was supposed to participate at the Committee workshop in Stellenbosch on the day of the meeting with the Deputy Minister.

The Minister pleaded with the Committee not to respond to the matter and assured the Committee the matter would be resolved internally and the documents would be presented to the Committee.

Ms Nkomo stated that the board currently had four members, two appointed by the Committee and one by the President, and stated that her colleague would address who appointed the other member. The ICASA moratorium was applicable to current applications but other stations that were existing would continue to operate; MDDA has not had exodus of CEOs but had a Director acting as CEO, there was no COO because of the agency organogram, the process of appointing a CEO took three to eight months, when MDDA appeared at Parliament last year it had to fill 19 positions and ten has been filled, the approach the board had last year was that the CEO would recruit his management team hence because the new CEO was with the agency for two months he had not recruited his own team; Media24 reduced its funding because its balance sheet was shrinking and wanted MDDA to do an impact study in terms of contribution to fair competition principles, modalities of the judgement were in its final stages hence MDDA solicited the Committee to engage with media houses to understand the issues of funding; the gender based arm of MDDA has an office in Johannesburg, but its office was far from the rural areas, MDDA pursued outreach programs in Mpumalanga and Eastern Cape to see organisations that MDDA could partner with on content, for children content issues MDDA was looking at partnering with children organisations in rural provinces; accepted Ms Tolashe’s advice on intergovernmental relations; agreed that MDDA needed to employ staff in this area and clarified issues raised by Mr Gungubele on the current situation at MDDA and its desired state.

Mr Musa Sishange, MDDA board member, who was appointed on the recommendation of the broadcasting media, remarked that broadcasters were the main funder of MDDA. Despite challenges the present MDDA board had delivered more projects than any other board since the inception of MDDA. The board was under the stewardship of the Minister. Illegality connoted criminality but invalid decisions were different from illegal decisions. Section 10 of the MDDA Act is quite clear on vacancies in the board, processes exist in the Act which indicate the path to take in such situations that would not make decisions invalid. Hence the board took valid decisions and the board formed a quorum when decisions were taken. Also print media had recommended someone to the Minister to ratify as a board member. The report submitted to the Committee was prepared based on the National Treasury template therefore some details could be missing based on the Committee's standard but detailed information on the MDDA APP and Strategic Plan were available and reports could be submitted to the Committee in writing if requested.

Mr Donald Liphoko, Acting CEO MDDA, remarked that one of the issues raised by the Committee during its March oversight visit was that there was no bridge between the staff and the board which affected the implementation of strategies; during a meeting with the board chairperson on 8 May 2017 the role of the Acting CEO and the implementation of the Strategic Plan were outlined as some priorities of the new team; he acknowledged that meaning was important in briefing the Committee; observed that there was sufficient oversight of the managerial aspect of the work of agencies through National Treasury, Accountant General and Department of Planning, Monitoring and Evaluation (DPME) hence there were three levels of compliance for the work agencies performed. However the key outcomes of the work of agencies were expressed as social impact and the board acknowledged this key outcome hence MDDA would look at the quality of output that the agency delivered after moving from the compliance stage.

Mr Liphoko said that the DoC Entity Oversight Committee was looking into how to standardize the definition of words to ensure that language did not affect briefings with the Committee. In 2016/17, Government Communication and Information System (GCIS) spent R22 million on community radio advertisements. Presently MDDA did not have the tools to determine how much advertising funds were spent on community radio in the provinces. One of the priorities of the Deputy Minister is for the Acting CEO to develop such tools. MDDA has a small but highly mobile staff complement. Some of the systems that had worked in GCIS and the DoC would be implemented in MDDA to assist the work and alleviate staff from doing highly menial work and focus on the strategic aspect of the work.

Mr Kuodza, Acting CFO, outlined the process of preparing the APP from the draft to the finalised version and said that the template of the Accountant General was followed. He acknowledged the point on the Committee's format and said that MDDA would continue to improve its communication with the Committee. The rationale behind strengthening the new community radio stations was that MDDA received limited funds
He replied about the jobs target set for the Medium Term. Applications were received from two project sources: those funded by MDDA and those not funded by MDDA. Projects funded by MDDA were not sustained after the project was concluded. Therefore, MDDA set this target as a medium term target (MTT): the 100 jobs created in the MTT was from MDDA projects and were funded through operational funding. Operational funding comes with funds for equipment and covers salaries of some positions such as station managers. Government allocated funds annually to MDDA and stated the purpose of the funds. Funds were allocated to print media from these funds. However MDDA needed additional funding for print media over and above what it received from government annually. Pages 21 and 22 shows projects connected to the broadcast media, this was because MDDA received more funds from the commercial broadcast media for its projects than what it received from the commercial print media. Efforts of MDDA include an ongoing social impact study that presents data to show that community media is struggling to sustain itself. MDDA hopes to use this social impact study to encourage the commercial broadcast sector to fulfil its corporate social responsibility initiatives by attracting new funders. MDDA also engaged with old funders to foster relationships. Funds for advertising cannot be accounted for in the MDDA budget but it assisted MDDA to complete its projects.

The Chairperson thanked the Minister and the team from MDDA.

Minister of Communications address on Brand South Africa
The Minister remarked that the presentation would focus on youth empowerment, the African agenda on BRICS, the United States of America, the United Kingdom, the Fees Must Fall movement and other matters that focus on what Brand South Africa has done to reposition the good brand of South Africa and handed over to the CEO of Brand South Africa.

Ambassador Kingsley Makhubela, Brand South Africa CEO, said that there were no policy changes after consultations with the new Minster. He and his team would present the different aspects of the presentation and he apologised for not attending the Committee strategic planning retreat at Stellenbosch due to his presence in managing some of the Minister’s engagements. He said that the Brand SA developed its Strategic Plan after a thorough analysis of the macro-environment around the world because the issues impacted positively and negatively on Brand SA. He highlighted the revised Strategic Plan in line with the legislative and policy mandates and work that the Brand SA did, the strategic intention, the strategic goals which were proactive and coordinated; reputation management of the Nation Brand; communication of the Nation Brand values system and value proposition; marketing of the Nation Brand and the Nation Brand identity; sound governance, high performance and the optimal utilisation of available resources; and the strategic objectives and 5-year targets of MDDA.

Ms Alice Puoane, Brand SA CFO, highlighted two issues on its Strategic Plan which were an internal analysis of the agency and the risks that Brand SA faced in carrying out its mandates: the strengths, weakness, opportunities and threats of Brand SA. Brand SA was faced with challenges such as the impact of negative incidents that impact negatively on SA interactions with stakeholders, inadequate management of intellectual property and lack of participation of stakeholders. The budget allocation for 2017/18 was R194 million. The agency did not ask for increased funding but would leverage on how it related with other organisations.

Mr Jonty Tshipa, Brand SA Director: Corporate Services, said that the structure of Brand SA was important to achieve its goal, it had tried to maintain 95% of its workforce to ensure continuity of targets, targets of 85% for the APP has been set for the financial year. Although four of the staff resigned to work in other organisations, three of these positions were filled by internal staff because they were competent and emerged as preferred candidates.

Ms Linda Sangaret, Brand SA Chief Marketing Officer, said that all staff understood the importance of the duties of their colleagues and the different divisions. Brand SA mobilised engagements with stakeholders to enhance and protect its reputation however South Africans were its own worst critics but internationally the brand had a good reputation. The programs that protect South African’s reputation included: assistance with marketing the departments, partnerships within SA such as the Junior Chamber of Commerce; partnerships to create awareness to present the right message outside the country (e.g. the Africa-Middle East program, Dakar commemoration program in Senegal; also have partnerships in Nigeria and Angola). Progress of the reputation of the SA brand was tracked through research programs both domestically and internationally such as domestic programs like the ‘Play your part’ and the World Economic Forum (WEF) research internationally which assisted Brand SA to make informed decisions on activities that the brand needed to participate in. Out of 138 countries, the WEF research showed that SA was in 47th position based on goods and market efficiencies (ten positions), labour market efficiency (ten positions) and macro-economic environment (six positions). Details of the WEF research could be provided in detail. However the institution pillars had gone downward and the Brand SA needed to project more positive information. She highlighted the programs on the ‘Play Your Part’ platform; work in collaboration with GCIS to enhance response time during crises using a table on potential crises to ensure more timely communication; measurement of the level of communication generated for instance from the CNN campaign that showed a different SA to the world encouraging investments and tourism to the country; put in place media partnerships for using media platforms more effectively, by giving information on relevant topics faster; had successful stakeholder marketing activities such as the indaba at Durban, rugby program in United Kingdom and where Brand SA has offices around the world. The targets for 2017/18 had been submitted to the Committee.

Discussion
Mr Tseli asked Brand SA to clarify if there were linkages with DoC and South African embassies across the world to promote the country’s brand, the role of Brand SA in curtailing the country’s downgrade, work done in domestically promoting the brand to reach schools and rural areas and why the target set on compliance to the Strategic Plan on page 12 was 95% and not 100%.

Ms Tolashe assured the CEO that the quality of the presentation showed that his staff worked as a team, asked the Minister to commend Brand SA on the role it played at the World Economic  forum, but expressed concerns on how other organisations portrayed SA in terms of nation building with regards to the reputation of the country. Emphasized that Brand SA needed to work with other organisations that played a role in social cohesion and encouraged the Minister to go beyond what had been done in with Brand SA asked Brand SA to state; its relationship with other departments, strategies put in place for other departments not to do anything against the agenda of the country, how it ensured that representatives of organisations did not make statements that could dent the image of the country and asked the Minister to coordinate and manage the statements that come from South African organisations.

Ms Van Damme noted that Brand SA indicated that South Africa had a positive reputation externally but negative reputation internally. She asked the agency to state how it arrived at such a conclusion, if there were any studies to back it up and what allowed such negative perceptions to thrive locally.

Mr Gungubele supported Ms Tolashes’s comment about negative statements by organisation in the country. He asked the DoC to state the role of communications in social cohesion because communications promoted credibility, reliability and consistency. He requested a workshop be organised to address communications and harmony issues in the DoC. He pointed to the business dictionary definition of objectives and goals to the agencies to ensure that the Committee would not continue to differ with the agencies on the language of accountability.

Ms Van Dyk commended Brand SA and its human resources team for putting strategies in place for in-house training to build staff capacities. She asked Brand SA to state strategies it used to address racism and violence in the country.

The Minister remarked that the violent protests and violent marches of the last few days were regrettable. The President had said three years ago that protests were allowed but violence especially the destruction of property would be prosecuted by the law enforcement agencies and the courts as this would serve to deter people from such acts. However she was not sure if she had seen any report on the prosecution of people that destroyed and vandalised property. She emphasized that the blame could not be placed on the justice system because she understood that some cases had been prosecuted in the past but these never got reported on by the media. Challenges occurred because Brand SA relied on the press when it should get this information internally from the Department of Justice. Brand SA might need to engage with DPSA, DPME and National Treasury to get the right terminology and language and acknowledged the point about the need for workshops. She pleaded with the Committee, Parliament as a whole, the Executive and the whole country to make SA a brand that stakeholders want to sell and speak about with one voice by ensuring that stakeholders project SA positively to the whole world. She assured the Committee that there were no policy shifts even though the Cabinet had been reshuffled.

Ambassador Makhubela, Brand SA CEO, remarked that presently the world judges South Africa as a country that is undergoing political instability. However that term should be used to address countries involved in violent situations such as Somalia. The South African Chamber of Commerce and Industry (SACCI) released survey results that showed that the present level of confidence on investments were lower than the pre-apartheid era. However other surveys by WEF, the Mo Ibrahim and Reputation Foundation showed that the present level of confidence on investments was higher however there was no data to back up the study of SACCI. Therefore Brand SA concluded that South Africans have the tendency to pull the country down internally. Last year when the country had tense race related issues, Brand SA collaborated with banks to launch the campaign ‘I belong” which went a long way to restore confidence and build the reputation of the country. Domestic activities include engagements with different business institutions, the ‘Play Your Part’ program. Other such activities of Brand SA are captured in the APP on page 25, such as reaching out to children, by collaborating with Department of Arts and Culture on constitutional values at different schools in rural provinces. Arrangements are been made to reach out to more schools in the next financial year.

Ambassador Makhubela said South Africa has been able to attract foreign direct investments. The AT Kearney Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) Confidence Index showcased SA among the top 25 countries that were attracting foreign direct investment. Brand SA compared notes with countries that were able to get out of a downgrade to ensure that SA implements the strategies used and gets out of the downgrade. The appropriation plan of Brand SA goes to the DoC as its budget allocation is released through the DoC. Brand SA reports to the Ministry as the Executive Authority through the Director General hence its strategies were incorporated into DoC strategies. The data collected through specific research collaborations with other organisations is shared with South African embassies. For instance the data had positive impacts because through the data collected South African citizens in Australia identified the aspects that needed to be corrected in its dealings with Australia. MDDA shares information on scientific research from reputable SA organisations with its embassies. For instance, last year SA was ranked top in its transparency of its budget which was due to the contributory efforts of the Committees on how the budgets are interrogated. Brand SA in its research on racial protests discovered that South Africans were hospitable to foreigners but were prone to violence hence more research was needed to identify why racial protests where common to ensure that racial protests were curtailed dealt with because Government, civil society and business have the responsibility to build the nation.

The Chairperson said that the use of scientific data from credible institutions to benchmark the achievements of Brand SA was commendable. He thanked the Minister, the CEO of Brand SA and his team for its presentations.

The meeting was adjourned.