Committee Reports on Private Security Industry Regulatory Authority Annual Report & APP

Meeting report

Committee Report on Private Security Industry Regulatory Authority (PSIRA) 2016/17 Annual Report
The Chairperson stated that the report before the Committee was drawn from consideration of the financial and service delivery performance of the Private Security Industry Regulatory Authority (PSIRA for the 2016/17 financial year. He took members through the report page per page. He noted that they should see whether the report reflected their views and inputs in addition to checking grammatical and factual errors.

Referring to page 10, Mr J Maake (ANC) stated that the Law Enforcement Department should be the Law Enforcement Programme.

Referring to page 10, Mr Z Mbhele (DA) pointed out that the authority did not clear 921 firearms applications during 2016/17 financial year, rather they were approved.

Referring to page 11, Mr Maake asked whether it was important to make a distinction between disabled people by stating disabled males and disabled females.

Referring to page 13, Ms L Mabija (ANC) asked what prohibited firearms were.

Referring to page 14, Ms D Kohler-Barnard (DA) noted that the paragraph on economic empowerment should be written in the past tense.

Referring to the conclusion on page 15, Ms Mabija said that the word “the” in the phrases “in the areas” should be deleted.

Referring to reporting requirements on page 15, Mr Maake asked whether the Arcadia was a complex or building.

The Chairperson sated that they should use a building in lieu of a complex.

Referring to reporting requirements on page 15, Mr Mbhele said that there were aspects not recorded with respect to internal management performance aspects. He recalled that the PSIRA was requested to report on research studies which it had conducted.

The Chairperson said that this was covered in the report.

Mr Maake asked whether the specific investigation on firearms in KwaZulu-Natal was reflected in the report. Was this done this financial year?

The Chairperson said that it was this year. He said that members should move to adopt the report.

Mr Maake moved for adoption.

Ms Molebatsi seconded.

The report was approved with changes.

Committee Report on Private Security Industry Regulatory Authority (PSIRA) 2017/18 Budget Vote, Annual Performance Plan and strategic plan

The Chairperson noted that the report was established after having considered the budget, annual performance plan, and the Strategic Plan of the PSIRA.

Mr Mbhele said that the PSIRA was not a budget vote. Budget Vote 20 was for the police. Reference to this should be deleted.

The Chairperson agreed.

Referring to page 3, Mr Mhlongo asked the meaning of recidivism.

The Chairperson explained that it meant re-offending.

Referring on page 5, Mr L Ramatlakane (ANC) asked where the source of breakdown of the budget came from.

The Chairperson said that the breakdown came from reports.

Referring on page 6, Ramatlakane said that the source of the table should be indicated. This applied to the table on page 5.

The Chairperson noted this and added that the same should apply to the table on page 8.

On page 8, Mr Ramatlakane asked whether the word “inflation” should be used or whether it should be the word “deflation.”

The Chairperson replied that the word inflation should be used.

Referring to observation 9(i) appearing on page 10, members had the following views:

Mr Mbhele commented that he did not share the same views captured in the observation 9(i) unless if it was clarified what it meant by that. The view was not expressed unanimously. The majority and minority view should be indicated

The Chairperson asked whether it was raised like that in the meeting.

The Committee Secretary stated that there were dissenting voices.

Mr Mbhele noted that it should reflect that some members had their concerns.

Mr Ramatlakane said he would like to hear the rephrased paragraph.

The Committee Secretary read out the paragraph.

Mr Ramatlakane asked what “some” meant. He asked whether minority and majority views should be reflected in the Committee report. The Committee report should state what the Committee decided without mentioning minority or majority. The paragraph spoke about the concerns that many companies in the security industry were foreign owned and armed people were more than security officers. That was how these issues were raised in the meeting. If the paragraph had to be rephrased it, it should reflect exactly what had been discussed.

Mr P Groenewald (FF+) agreed. He noted that the question of minority and majority could not reflect in the Committee report. He did not want to take sides. He knew that some members might disagree with others; but it was not acceptable to state that it was 51%. There should be different views but the views held by majority should be the view of the Committee. His suggestion was to keep the paragraph as it was because if the paragraph was to be changed to state who and who said this or a particular party said that, the whole report should be revisited to indicate the view of each and every one or every party.

Mr Mbhele said that rephrasing the paragraph was a matter of semantics. He understood the report to contain the Committee’s observations and/or recommendations in a unanimous fashion. The report raised concern of the Committee that the foreign ownership was problematic. However, this sentiment was not shared by all members. There were dissenting views. He asked why members were not concerned over the fact that so many companies in the South African economy were foreign owned.

 Mr Mhlongo said that the paragraph should be adopted as it was because no one would be happy to hear that the country was secured by foreigners or private foreign owned companies as if the country could not protect itself. In the security sector, there should be a promotion of locally owned companies. There was no contradiction. There was no problem about the concern of the Committee. It should be borne in mind that foreign owned (security) companies were a threat to the peace and security of South Africa.

 Mr Ramatlakane said they all agreed that with the reformulation from changing the word “worry” to “concern.” He agreed with Mr Mbhele that there were dissenting views but where a decision needed to be made, the decision is taken. It should not reflect the majority and minority.

Ms Kohler-Barnard stated that members of the DA had the right to express their opinions. It was an insult to state that the views or opinions of members of the DA could not be reflected in the report. She stressed that the paragraph should not tie members of the DA to the concerns they had strongly disagreed with. She made a request that her views should not be overlooked  when a report was made.

 Mr Groenewald said that the different views were not minimised. These different views should be reflected in the minutes. Different concerns should be clearly stated in the minutes.

 Mr Ramatlakane said that he never said that any member had no right to express his or her view. There was a rule adopted by Parliament – which was not yet in force – which stated that the majority’s concern or view would reflect the concern or view of the Committee when reporting. He recalled that some objected to that rule. Despite objection, the rule was adopted. It did matter where some people agree or disagree, what mattered was the position of majority. 

Mr Maake said that they should vote on it, if they were agreeing with how the paragraph was.

 The Chairperson agreed with Mr Ramatlakane’s proposal. He asked members to move for adoption of the report.

 Mr Ramatlakane moved for adoption.

 Mr Maake seconded.

 The report was adopted with amendments.

Consideration and adoption of Minutes
The minutes of 2 May 2017 was considered and adopted with a minor amendment.
The minutes of 3 May 2017 was considered and adopted with a minor amendment.
The minutes of 4 May 2017 was considered and adopted with a minor amendment.
The minutes of 10 May 2017 was considered and adopted with a minor amendment.
The minutes of 16 May 2017 was considered and adopted with a minor amendment.
The minutes of 24 May 2017 was considered and adopted with a minor amendment.
The minutes of 14 June 2017 was considered and adopted with a minor amendment.
The minutes of 20 June 2017 was considered and adopted with a minor amendment.
The minutes of 21 June 2017 was considered and adopted with a minor amendment.
The minutes of 27 June 2017 was considered and adopted with a minor amendment.
 

The meeting was adjourned.