Committee Minutes

Meeting report

The Chairperson said this year, the Committee has some Bills it needs to push. This includes the Bill on Gender-Based Violence and Femicide (GBVF); the National Youth Development Agency (NYDA) Amendment Bill; and the Bill on Persons Living with a Disability. She said this year, the National Council on Gender-based Violence and Femicide must also be established.

The Committee must finalise the three provinces which did not account for the Sanitary Dignity Packs programme. The Committee is going to invite these provinces to make presentations on 5 March 2021.

Adoption of Minutes
The Committee considered and adopted its minutes dated 4 August 2020, 5 August 2020, 18 August 2020, 25 August 2020 and 3 September 2020.

On the minutes of 3 September 2020, the Department of Women, Youth and Persons with Disabilities (DWYPD) presented its audit challenges. Questions were asked around issues such as, how the Department accounts for R1.6 billion allocated when it launched the GBVF-NSP (National Strategic Plan).

The Chairperson said the Committee must find a way to deal with these issues, and must see if government is doing something or not. She said she spoke to the Chairperson of the Portfolio Committee on Police, who said the Committee is busy with a manual for police stations. The manual sets out how to deal with cases of gender-based violence. As a Committee, Members must ensure there is thorough oversight, in accordance with departmental policy, over issues of gender-based violence. The Committee must look at how the Department is dealing with these issues.

The Committee needs to understand the relationship between the Department of Social Development and DWYPD, as it does not see any coordination between these two departments. DWYPD needs to attend at the Committee and do a presentation to show if people with disabilities are treated with dignity, regarding issues affecting needs.

The Chairperson also said the Committee must call the DWYPD every two months to come and account on issues of GBVF, to which Ms N Sharif (DA) agreed.

Ms Sharif said it is now more than a year which passed since the National Strategic Plan was adopted by Cabinet, and the implementation phase started. It is a perfect opportunity to call the Department and committees to do joint meetings to do oversight on the work achieved. Everything the departments are doing needs to speak to the National Strategic Plan, because this is how it monitors and assesses government’s work when it comes to GBVF.
The Department of Social Development needs to come to account on issues such as shelters for victims of gender-based violence. The Department of Health needs to come as well to present on issues of DNA tests taken on rape survivors.

Ms N Ntlangwini (EFF) said she agrees with suggestions made to call departments to come and account, especially looking at the Department of Police. The Committee needs to get a monthly report so it can track some of the cases. This will give matters the priority they deserve regarding codes and prosecution.

The minutes were adopted.

Members moved on to consider and adopt the minutes of 4 September 2020, 9 October 2020, 13 October 2020, 20 October 2020, 27 October 2020, 10 November 2020, 11 November 2020, 13 November 2020 and17 November 2020.

In the meeting of 17 November 2020, the DWYPD briefed the Committee on its Annual Report for 2019/20, the Internal Audit and Risk Committee, the challenges it faced and recommendations made to the Department’s findings.

The Chairperson said the Director-General should investigate filling vacancies in the DWYPD during the COVID-19 lockdown period, for example, the appointment of the Chief Director in the Disability Programme.

The Committee Researcher said the Department will do a follow-up with the Minister regarding this, and also with the Director-General, and the Public Service Commission.

Members moved on to consider and adopt the minutes of 20 November 2020, 25 November 2020, 2 December 2020, 3 December 2020, 2 February 2021, 3 February 2021, 16 February 2021 and18 February 2021.

Ms Ntlangwini noted her dissatisfaction with having a meeting only to adopt minutes from previous months. In every meeting, the Committee should try to slot in a time to adopt the minutes from the previous meeting to avoid it piling up.

The Chairperson agreed with her suggestion, and said the Committee will try to implement it in the upcoming meetings.

The meeting was adjourned.