Committee minutes

Meeting report

Opening remarks
The Chairperson welcomed members and allowed the secretary to report the apologies from members.

Consideration of Committee Minutes of the Portfolio Committee on Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs
The Committee considered minutes dated 28 June 2017. The minutes were adopted without amendments.

The Committee further considered and approved minutes dated 15, 16, 22, 23, 29, 30 August; 06, 12, 13 September and 03, 04, 05, 10, 11, 18, 19, 20 October. 

Mr K Mileham (DA) asked that it be recorded that he had submitted an apology for the meeting on 29 August 2017.

Mr J Dube (ANC) said the Committee had to agree that if a person was absent without an apology then that had to be reflected correctly.

Ms J Maluleke (ANC) noted an irregularity with the attendance of Mr Z Xalisa (EFF) as he had been recorded as having attended two consecutive meetings in September whilst her recollection was that he attended one meeting a week if he attended and never attended a whole sitting as he always left early.

The Chairperson bemoaned the fact that dealing with minutes very late resulted in such flaws with recollection and disputes about attendance of members.

Mr Mileham referred to resolution 4 in the minutes dated 13 September and said it had no logic as it spoke to an executive summary of the Khoi-San Amendment Bill the Committee had requested from the Department of Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs (COGTA), when such a bill did not exist.           

Ms A Masondo (ANC) recalled that he had in fact requested a high level summary of the Traditional and Khoisan Leadership Bill (TKLB) repeatedly. That summary had indeed been provided by COGTA to the Committee.

Mr Mileham requested that the minutes be corrected to reflect the TKLB.

Referring to the minutes dated 5 October, it is mentioned there that the National Disaster Management Center (NDMC) had not yet accounted to the Committee by that date. Further, he said there were incomplete sentences in the minutes dated 18 October 2017.

Ms N Mthembu (ANC) said that she wanted to know what the asterisk next to her name meant because she attended some meetings though she accepted that she had been absent from others due to her work with the Portfolio Committee on Small Business Development.

Mr E Mthethwa (ANC) recalled that the Commission for the Promotion and Protection of the Rights of Cultural, Religious and Linguistic Communities (CRL Rights Commission) had clarified the matter where it had been accused of misleading the Committee during the meeting on 18 October 2017.
The discussion had had two opposing views: that the CRL Rights Commission report be adopted versus delaying the adoption, whereas the minutes had captured only the non-adoption of the report. He felt that needed to be captured correctly.

Mr Mileham agreed with Mr Mthethwa that discussions and not decisions had occurred in respect of the CRL Rights Commission report. Moreover there had been two meetings with the CRL Rights Commission but the Committee only had minutes of 18 October with the proceedings of 17 October 2017 missing.

Ms Maluleke noted grammatical errors within the same minutes.

Mr Mthethwa said there were quite a number of resolutions that the Committee had made which had not been implemented to date. He proposed that the secretariat give the committee a list of unimplemented resolutions so that the committee could start working on them in the next meeting.  

Programme
The Chairperson then made programme announcements regarding future meetings of the committee and who it awaited to come and give briefings.

Mr Mileham asked for clarity regarding a briefing by the Minister of COGTA and the NDMC.

The Chairperson replied that the Minister would brief the Committee separately from the NDMC briefing.

Mr Mthethwa said that possibly the Committee could also encourage the Minister to also be present when COGTA was presenting annual reports and that if he was to be absent a clear apology had to be submitted.

Mr Masondo said that from his understanding Minister Des van Rooyen’s involvement on issues concerning Eskom and Trillian were being processed through the inquiry into Eskom by the Portfolio Committee on Public Enterprises (PCPE). It could be useful to enquire on the progress of that work through the Chairperson’s office before the briefing by the Minister at COGTA
The Chairperson said that Minister Des van Rooyen would be accounting to the Committee on COGTA issues, as particular issues to do with Eskom would have been covered by the PCPE. If the inquiry needed anything clarified by Minister van Rooyen; then it could certainly invite the Minister.

Mr Mileham said that in the Committee’s resolutions regarding the Joint meeting with the Portfolio Committee on Energy, it wanted an update on the Inter-Ministerial Task Team (IMTT) resolutions therefore he proposed that Minister Van Rooyen be invited to that meeting as well.

The Chairperson said the Ministers or their deputies on Energy; Public Enterprises also had to be invited as they were key to the subject matter of that joint meeting.

The meeting was then adjourned.