Committee Report on Eastern Cape oversight visit

Meeting report

Minutes of 24 October 2017

The Chairperson said they should go through the minutes page by page.

Dr M Figg (DA) corrected the words "South African" which should instead be "South Africa" on page 2 of the minutes.

Dr Figg also corrected the words "Mr Memezi" which should be "The Chairperson" on the last page of the report.

Mr F Adams (ANC) said that in future the word "Honourable" should be used in the minutes when referring to a Member of the Committee as provided for in the rules of Parliament.

Dr Adams moved for the adoption of the minutes.

Mr Figg seconded the move.

The Committee adopted the minutes with amendments.

Minutes of 31 October 2017

Mr D Ryder (DA) asked for the meaning of the word "Ponce" on the second paragraph of page 5 of the minutes.

Mr Shoaib Denyssen, Content Adviser, Committee Section, said this was an honest mistake the word should be "Once", not "Ponce".

Dr Figg corrected the word "give" with the word "gave" on the first paragraph of page 6 of the minutes.

Mr Adams said there should be consistency on the word "Honourable" in all minutes.

He moved for the adoption of the minutes with amendments.

Mr Ryder seconded the move.

The Committee adopted the minutes with amendments.

Consideration and adoption of the Report of the Oversight Visit to the Eastern Cape undertaken on 11 to 15 September 2017

The Chairperson said the Content Adviser should take the Committee through the report focusing only on critical areas.

Mr Denyssen said that on the first day of the oversight visit, the Committee received a briefing from the Director-General of the Department of Public Works (DPW) and the Property Management Trading Entity (PMTE) on the status of the Immovable Asset Register, property maintenance and leasing municipal debt as well as rural town development and job creation in the Eastern Cape.

Immovable Asset Register

In terms of the Immovable Asset Register, the Committee should guide them (Content Adviser and Researcher) on how they should follow the guidelines on Section 13(d) of the Government Immovable Asset Management Act (GIAMA), where it was indicated on the fourth bullet point that as custodian department, DPW and provincial and local counterparts should ensure that all activities that were associated with common law ownership were executed through the stipulations of the various subsections of section 13(d) of GIAMA.

Ms E Masehela (ANC) asked for clarity with regard to figures that were provided on the first bullet point of the Immovable Asset Register specifically on completed projects which amounted to R1.4 billion.

Mr Adams said that it was important that the Committee make the report very clear because it was for public consumption, and therefore suggested that it was left it as it was.

Dr C Madlopha (ANC) thanked Mr Denyssen for the report. She noted that the report talked about completed projects but also stated that the total value of the Immovable Asset Register was R138.9 billion, yet when one added the amounts, one got R136.1 billion; she questioned whether the R1.4 billion was part of the total. It was like another sentence where they were indicating that the one that was completed was so much included in the total value of assets that was in the register.

Dr Figg suggested that in the first sentence, the Content Adviser should just give an explanation and then in the following sentence, state that the figures were made up of the following amounts, so that it could be understood that all those figures made up R138.9 billion.

The Chairperson agreed and noted that there should be more simplicity in clarifying things which would be better for the public to understand and be able to read the document.

Mr Denyssen said that the concerns of Members was noted and those figures would be rectified.

Maintenance and leasing of properties

Mr Denyssen said that in terms of maintenance and leasing of properties, the first issue was the resuscitation of workshops to do maintenance, where the DG stressed the resuscitation of artisan workshops at the DPW Regional Offices as a priority issue. The second sub-heading was the different types of maintenance; the danger of non-compliance with the GIAMA, which was noted as a serious problem. This issue of non-compliance with GIAMA was also raised by the Auditor-General (AG) and this Committee, which was a serious challenge for DPW. The bullet points on this issue were indicated in the report and Members were at liberty to add on those bullet points if they wished to or correct them.

Job Creation through the Expanded Public Works Programme (EPWP)

Mr Denyssen said that on job creation through EPWP, the Deputy Director-General of DPW gave an input at that meeting and provided detail on Public Employment Programmes (PEPs), which was the broader programme of EPWP and the Public Employment Programmes Inter-Ministerial Committees (PEP IMC) management of it. So, EPWP was not only focussed at DPW, but rather across government.

Site visit to Sakhululeka Senior Secondary School, Fort Beaufort

Mr Denyssen said that during this visit, the School Governing Body and the school principal complained that what was built on the school was not what was promised. They were promised a school hall and a fence. Yet only 74% of the work was completed. On bullet point 2.2 was what the Committee noted and Members were quite correct in their assessment of the project. There was an issue of the project manager not being upfront with the real issues of the project.

Dr Madlopha said that they must look at the workshops because from the beginning of the DPW turnaround strategy, it was talking about resuscitation of the workshops, but practically that was not happening. Even in the villages where Members were staying, the Department was outsourcing even to put in a light bulb, instead of trying to build capacity in the workshops. Therefore, the issue of the follow up on the resuscitation plan of the workshops would be important including the budget, so that when the Committee did oversight, they were in a position to see whether this was happening or not.

Dr Madlopha said that on the visit to the school, one of their greatest concerns was that the school was a two storey building, but there was no provision for people with disabilities and they could not understand that a public building did not to have access for people with disabilities. It was something which needed to be followed up because it could not be as such.

Mr Ryder said that the report was silent on the matters that emerged on the first oversight visit and one of the issues that they agreed upon was that the EPWP was working but its implementation was not uniformed across all places. The main concern of the Committee was that in some places it was managed very well, in others it was not managed well, and in some places the allocation of jobs was left to the wrong people.

Mr Ryder said that on the site visit to the school, there were two questions that were raised and were not really answered. The first question was that why the school was not managed by the province? The question on the back of his mind was whether all the Eastern Cape schools were under the national department's auspices or only senior schools. Another question that was asked was why the Department was spending more money on renovating the school rather than building a new school which would be cheaper.

Mr Denyssen said that all the concerns raised by Members were noted and would be effected in the final report.

Recommendations of the Committee

The Chairperson requested the Content Adviser to go through all the recommendations of the Committee.

Mr Denyssen said that the Committee recommended that the Minister of Public Works, as followed:

• Instructed the DG to provide a specific plan on the resuscitation of the regional workshops by the end of the first term of 2018.

• Instructed the DDG in charge of EPWP to avail the regulation and standard operating procedures on the process of selecting beneficiaries to the Committee Secretary by the end of the fourth term of 2017.

• Discussed with the Minister of Justice and Correctional Services on the matter of the urgent need for the establishment of a justice precinct for the people of uMthatha. Merely making adjustments to the magistrates' court continued to postpone and delay the provision of justice to the people of the area.

• Engaged with the Minister of Health and relevant counterparts on the delay of the opening of the clinic at Centuli in uMthatha. A report on such engagement and the detailed site plan, presentation and the reasons for non-payment of the contractor of the clinic had to be sent to the Committee.

• Discussed with the Ministers of Justice and Correctional Services, Higher Education and Training, and Labour a programmatic approach for the skilling of relevantly graded offenders in prisons. This discussion would be with a view of developing a policy that could assist the programmatic skilling and certification of offenders that would assist their long term re-emergence into society. This would simultaneously assist in the short term, with the maintenance of boilers, plumbing, and other daily tasks at prisons as well as at other government buildings

• Considered the negative effects of the centralized supply chain management system that negated the speedy maintenance and service provision mandated that the regional offices of DPW had towards client departments across the country.

• Instructed the DG and top management of the DPW and PMTE to ensure that the GIAMA was properly implemented. The PMTE to ensure that User and Custodian Asset Management Plans were crafted for all client departments so that proper daily and long terms maintenance was done to all government's immovable assets in which client departments were accommodated.

Mr Denyssen said that Members of the Committee could add other recommendations on issues they have raised in terms of the report.

The Chairperson said that all the recommendations of the Committee had to be stated clearly so that they could make a follow up if it was not implemented.

Dr Madlopha said that as a Committee, they should recommend to the DPW and the Construction Industry Development Board (CIDB) to table a status report on the grading of local contractors from different provinces so that they knew from which grade local contractors could be assisted.

Mr Adams said that they should emphasise to the DPW that whenever a Grade 9 construction company was given a project, that company had to take small constructors under its wing, specifically Grade 1 to Grade 7 because the CIDB could only grade companies when they did the actual work.

Ms Madlopha said that the Committee should also recommend that all public buildings, including schools, provide and cater for people with disabilities.

The Chairperson said that Members recommendations would be added in the report and thanked Members for the input.

Ms Madlopha moved for the adoption of the report with amendments.

Mr Ryder seconded the move.

The Committee adopted the report with amendments.

The meeting was adjourned.