Department of Transport 2020/21 Quarter 2 & 3 performance; with Minister

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Transport

03 March 2021
Chairperson: Mr M Zwane (ANC)
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Meeting Summary

In a virtual meeting, the Portfolio Committee on Transport met for a briefing by the Department of Transport on its 2020/2021 second and third quarter expenditure for the 2020/21 financial year. The Minister of Transport gave a brief overview of the expenditure for the programmes that the Department was running during the period, and the reasons for the underspending.

The Committee Members expressed their dismay that the information in the presentation they had previously received was not the same as the one that was presented in the virtual meeting. The Committee was concerned that the Department had underspent in most of its programmes by a considerable amount, and Members wanted to know why the reasons for underspending in the 2020/21 financial year were the same as those for the 2019/20 financial year.

The Committee asked why there was a delay in the filling of vacancies, and in dealing with the compensation of employees. It was of the view that the Department did not take service delivery seriously. It was concerned about the change of heart on the Moloto rail corridor project, stating that the reasons did not make sense, and was in breach of promises made to the Moloto community.

Other issues raised during discussion included the taxi recapitalisation programme, the scholar transport programme, the decline in rail passenger numbers, the lack of adequate security resulting in the looting and vandalism of infrastructure, and the extent of fraud in the road traffic environment.

Meeting report

Department of Transport: Quarters 2 and 3 expenditure report

Mr Fikile Mbalula, Minister of Transport, gave a brief presentation of the executive summary of the Department’s expenditure. He said the Department had spent R27.675 billion of the projected spending of R28.122 billion for the second quarter, indicating a delay in spending of approximately R447 million. Third quarter spending had amounted to R42.475 billion of projected spending of R45.083 billion, indicating a delay in spending of R2.603 billion.

The delay in spending was mainly on transfers and subsidies, particularly in the rail transport, public transport, civil aviation and maritime transport programmes, as well as on the compensation of employees (CoE) due to the slow filling of vacant posts, and goods and services across all programmes. The underspending on goods and services was due mainly to slow or non-spending on projects affected by the national lockdown due to the Covid-19 pandemic. As a result, other projects would be deferred to the new financial year.

Mr Alec Moemi, Director-General, Department of Transport (DOT), asked for confirmation from the Committee whether the Department was expected to present on the expenditure only, and not the performance.

The Chairperson said that was what the agenda indicated.

The Committee Secretary said National Treasury guidelines indicated that when departments presented on their quarterly expenditures, they should table a full report, which included indicators and targets.

Mr Moemi said there was “no train smash,” because he was prepared to do both.

Mr L Mangcu (ANC) said the Committee had not received the other report that the Director-General was going to be presenting – it had only received the expenditure report.

Mr Moemi continued the presentation on the second and third quarter expenditure, indicating the number of targets achieved in each of the Department’s programmes.

(See attached presentation documents for expenditure breakdown and performance overview).

Discussion

Mr Mangcu expressed his disappointment, as the presentation the Committee had received on expenditure had changed from the one that was presented by DG. Some of the Members liked preparing by going through the presentation before the meeting, and it was unfortunate that the presentation at the meeting was sent to the Members at only 9am, before the meeting. He could not comment on this presentation as he had not prepared on it.

He would have loved it if the Minister were still present so he could see that not much had changed in the Department.  He referred to the fourth quarter of the 2019/20 financial year and what was presented to the Committee, where the administration programme stated the underspending on compensation to employees was due to slow filling of the vacant posts. That had also been said in the fourth quarter of 2019/20. He would have told the Minister that if they really needed to be taken seriously, there should never be the same excuse every time. The Committee was not ignoring the impact of Covid-19, but even if he had gone to the presentations before the fourth quarter of 2019/20, the same excuse would have prevailed.

The excuse for underspending on rail transport in the 2021/21 financial year was also like that of the 2019/20 financial year. The road transport programme situation was also exactly the same as in the previous financial year. What had changed? The maritime transport programme said the same thing in both financial years about the Merchant Shipping Bill still being at the initiation stage. What was the difference? Terminology?

The withholding of transfer of payment grants due non-compliance on public transport had been with the Nelson Mandela Bay municipality in 2019/20, but in 2020/21 it was also with the Rustenburg and Mangaung municipalities. Why were those municipalities not complying with the Division of Revenue Act (DORA)? What was it that was not being complied with? What had the Department done to correct that which was not done to comply with DORA? The excuse for underspending on goods and services projects, such as public transport grant monitoring, was similar in both financial years.

In the presentation to the Committee, the percentage spent on third quarter transfers and subsidies was about 74%, while it was 75% in the previous slides that were sent to the Committee Members. In the payment for capital assets, the 140% was not there in the new presentation. Under transfer payments, the category of tax scrapping, the figure on the amount available had changed from what they were in the presentation that was sent to members. The same thing had happened with the South African National Taxi Council -- the figures had changed. Were bursaries to non-employees the same as for higher education institutions? Why was the name changed? The figures were also changed on international organisations. The figures on the total budget on both presentations were not the same. What was the reason?

In previous meetings, the Committee had requested a list of court decisions against the Passenger Rail Agency of South Africa (PRASA), or settlements that were being catered for. He wanted to remind them that the Committee had not received the list.

Mr K Sithole (IFP) said was concerned with the report, because in all the programmes there was underspending. That had also been the case even in the 2019/20 financial year and the other years before that. This meant that the Department was not serious about service delivery. It had even delayed the implementation of the Regional Corridor Development Programme. What had happened to the funding that was not spent on the projects? Why had they budgeted for something they did not implement involving the South African National Taxi Council (SANTACO)?  If the taxi industry was refusing the funds, what other mechanism did the Department have? Did they allocate the funds for use in other projects? There was a competition between the Department of Basic Education and the Department of Transport over budgeting for scholar transport. If the National DoT was budgeting for this programme, how much were they budgeting? How much had been spent? In which provinces had the money been spent?

Why were they not filling all the vacancies? The Department had underspent on all the programmes. Were the accounting officers serious about that budget? The Committee could not keep approving a budget that was not being spent every year. He added that the Department should consider the road between Frankfurt and Newcastle, which was so full of potholes it was hard to drive on it.

Mr M Chabangu (EFF) asked why the other report was not received on time by the Committee. The guidelines clearly stated that both must be presented, and the failure to do was just proof that the Department was undermining the Committee. Why were the targets not achieved? Was it because workers were still doing their jobs from home? 75 vacancies were supposed to have been filled by the end of the year -- what was their target? How many security personnel had been employed? Were there enough to protect the passengers and the property of PRASA? 45% of jobs being created was below par. People were looking for jobs while the Department was moving at a snail’s pace to fill those posts.

What had the Department discovered in the Free State, because during the Committee’s oversight visit, they had found that nothing was taking place? How were the bicycles going to be used in mountainous areas?  On the anti-drunk driving operation, the Department had not achieved the target they had set for themselves -- what was the reason?  How had the provincial road maintenance grant been spent? Who was responsible for it? Some of the provincial roads were referred to as “killer roads.” Did they follow up on the money given to the provinces?

Mr L McDonald (ANC) said it was a big concern that the Committee was expected to make proper inputs, solve problems and do its oversight as mandated by the Constitution, while they never received the documents on time. The performance levels were 100% on rail transport, 100% on integrated transport planning and 75% on road transport. The Committee had decided the previous year that the Department must focus its projects on service delivery, and none of its targets had been aligned to service delivery. The train infrastructure had been looted, but the target had been achieved at 100% -- it did not make sense. On rail transport, the high-speed rail corridor framework was talked about in the Committee, and it was then called the Moloto Rail Corridor, but nothing had been done. The people of Moloto were dying every day because the government had not delivered what they had promised.

He did not understand the lack of jobs created under PRASA, because they went through a situation where PRASA’s infrastructure was being carried away every day, so it could not have employed people. The aviation industry was the most under-represented industry in South Africa if one looked at black people. Aviation was still dominated by white people, but the government kept spending money on it. Was the government ever going to take black people out of poverty and give them equal rights like other South Africans? They could not continue like that. Every year was the same story.

The government was spending millions of rands on the ports, specifically the Durban port. The Department should get on with the work, because without transport the economy would come to a standstill. The report had stated that the road accident fatalities had decreased by 50%, but that meant that there was actually an increase, because during the reporting period there were no cars on the road, as it was during the lockdown.

The number of vehicles weighed was said to be only 410 000. There were more trucks on the roads during the lockdown, because they were the only transport that was allowed to be moving. Why were the trucks destroying the government’s infrastructure? They knew that the weighbridges were not working, so they were just overloading.  The annual target for the assessment of gravel roads had been 15 000km, but the Department had done only 62km. The officials of the Department were not allowed to work during the lockdown, but they needed to go and drive on the rural roads and see what state they were in.

The Department should not give unbalanced reports. They could not say they could not work because of the lockdown, but on the other side claim victories. If the government and the Department did not start spending money and fixing the railway looting and destruction, they would never get PRASA up and running again.  To underspend an amount of over R2 billion in an entity like PRASA, where they had serious inefficiencies, could not be condoned.

The Committee was still busy with a feasibility study on a tugboat that they had sold and were now re-renting from an Italian national who was not even a South African. The tugboat was in the expenditure programme for the fourth time. Why had they overspent on leave pay and donations? Why was the Department and the government still leasing a plane from an external company and spending so much when the money that was spent leasing could buy a plane?

They needed to get aligned to service delivery, because there was no service delivery at all. In Mangaung, they had spent over R550 million on buses, and none of those buses was working -- they were all parked in a storeroom. What had the Department done to investigate the spending of the R550 million, plus the R20 million that had been spent on Glad Africa as a consultant? The Committee had instructed the Department to disclose all expenditure on consultancy, but it was not reflected in the presentation.  

Mr T Mabhena (DA) said the slides that Members had initially received had disorientated them. The slides had stated there were 550 taxis in the taxi recapitalisation programme (TRP). In the updated one that was presented, it said there were 522 taxis. What had happened to the other taxis? The Department did not take the Committee seriously. What the Members loved about the Committee was that it was non-partisan -- they were only dealing with the issues at hand, and not being political.

The Department had a 64% vacancy rate. The Committee had asked who the talent acquisition specialist in the human resources (HR) department was. Was the person still getting their salary? Was the person still getting a performance appraisal at the end of each financial year? However, the Committee was given lousy responses that people could not travel because of the Covid-19 lockdown while it had been having virtual meetings with the Department.

The Department did not take the taxi industry seriously. The TRP was the most generous programme when it came to the shifting of funds. Every time the Department wanted to move money, their first target was the TRP fund, which proved that it had a total disregard of the taxi industry.

Mr Mabhena said that every time the Department sent a presentation to the Committee the number of taxis that had been scrapped had significantly declined. The allocated budget for the TRP was also continuously declining. What was the Department’s mechanism to deal with the uptake in the taxi industry? The Department had said they were engaging with the taxi industry. There was a Taxi Indaba which had been completed, but the problem was still there. The National Taxi Association (NTA) had not participated in the Indaba, and had said that the Department never engaged them.

There was serious fraud within the road traffic environment. The Department was still waiting for approval of their national anti-fraud and corruption strategy for the road traffic environment, but they did not specify any timeframes. It was as if the Department was coming to the Committee with corrective measures that had no timeframes, and hoping for approval from it.

The Chairperson and some Members had made promises to the Moloto residents in the Thembisile Hani Municipality, but the Department had written a letter to the municipality and told them that they were not going to implement the Moloto railway corridor because it was not going to yield the desired economic and social benefits, and that the project was too expensive to undertake. What did that say, when the Members of the Committee had gone to those people and told them that they would implement and come back to report to the residents, but the Department then sends the letter? The Committee still had the responsibility to go back and report on the promises they had made to those people.

The Department had said they partnered with universities, and were reviewing signed memorandums of agreement (MOAs) to incorporate pertinent matters in the programme file for civil aviation. What were those pertinent measures?

The Department had planned an annual target of rail passenger trips of 240 million. The preliminary quarter 2 performance indicated it had achieved only had 11 647 passenger trips, which meant it had achieved 0.00485% of the set target. Even before there was a national state of disaster, the passenger rail trips for PRASA were significantly declining. The Department conveniently used the lockdown as an excuse. Now it was level 1 of lockdown, but the Department could not run trains because there were no cables and rail tracks. What were the Department’s corrective measures? The presentation’s corrective measure said, “Oversight meeting planned for November 2020 including RAMP (repair and maintenance programme) evaluation”. Why were they presenting this in March 2021? Were they telling the Committee what they planned for November 2020? The corrective measure should have read as, “We had a meeting in November 2020, and after that meeting these were the findings of that meeting, resolutions, corrective measures, and this is where they are”. It looked like a cut and paste out of some presentation -- the Department did not care to proofread their own presentation.  What did that say about the Department, and how they totally disregarded the Committee? Service delivery on the ground was bad.

Mr P Mey (FF+) said more money must be made available for training in the Department, because without skilled people on the ground, having all the money would not make them successful. During the Committee’s oversight meeting, the Members had visited Mamelodi, where they had asked for the person in charge. The person to whom the Members had been directed had said he was not in charge.  No person wanted to take responsibility. He had told the chairperson of the board and the acting chief executive officer during their meeting with PRASA, that they needed a station master’s office where the person was going to take all the questions.

What was the amount budgeted to improve the dilapidated railway stations? There were 29 railway stations in the Eastern Cape, and they were all dilapidated. It was time that they started to upgrade them.

Mr Mabhena said an invitation to the taxi lekgotla had been received by the Chairperson in his personal capacity. Had the Committee been invited? Did the Committee acknowledge that they had received the invitation? Was it communicated to the Members for their attention? They needed to put the matter to rest, because the Committee was arguing with the Department it never received an invitation to such an important occasion. The Committee needed to put the matter to rest, because they were butting heads with the Department.

Department’s response

Mr Moemi said that the issue of compensation of employees and the slow spending in the filling of vacancies were matters that were not new in that Department. It was a repeat finding with the Auditor- General (AG), and the Department had put it in the action plan to say they would be ambitious in filling vacant posts. It had set a target to fill 75 posts right away. The post of Deputy Director of Rail had not been filled for over 11 years. They had been doing everything, including reviewing the requirements, to find a suitable candidate for the post, and also to review other posts. The posts were being filled virtually. He had received a report that 15 posts had been filled in the last quarter. Posts had been advertised in quarter 4, including the five Deputy Director-General posts. Interviews were being conducted virtually.  The Department had challenges with some posts, where the candidate was required to do a physical assessment. The challenges the Department was facing were all new challenges, and the impacts of Covid-19 had been severe. It would give the Committee a full breakdown of the vacancies that had been filled and those that had not been filled when they came to report on the fourth quarter.

The delays on the Merchant Shipping Bill had been at different stages and involved different issues. The Department was doing a review of the Bill.  This was because it wanted to make that Bill the key and primary legislation for the maritime sector. They were discussing the Bill with the maritime branch and legal service. If they were to continue the path they were on, it was not going to be sustainable because if the International Maritime Organisation issued a new annexure, in terms of the ratified protocols they would be required to domesticate that annexure and bring in new legislation that incorporated it. The Department wanted to make sure that the primary legislation brought into being several annexures, so that when a new annexures came, they could just amend the legislation. The delay had been multi-year and not multi-quarter matter. They were now sitting with a draft Bill that had been reviewed legally, internal discussions per sector had taken place, and they had asked for inputs from the regulator and the South African Maritime Safety Authority.

The Department had said in the previous year that it had withheld the Public Transport Network Grant funds for Port Elizabeth, and it was the same situation for Rustenburg and Mangaung. The issue was that the Director General and the Treasury had made a commitment that they would assist Port Elizabeth because of the political situation and the instability in the municipality. Interventions were made, and the Department had applied for a rollover of that money to make sure the municipalities did not lose the money. Some things were beyond the Department’s control, as they could not force the Council to make decisions, and its only legal leverage was to withhold funds. Port Elizabeth municipality was now out of the crisis that it was facing, and the Department was discussing the matter regularly with the municipality.

Mr McDonald had raised the issue of Mangaung, and had felt that the Department was not doing enough, and nothing was moving. As due processes required, the Department had an obligation to consult with the municipality, and offer them the opportunity to explain themselves and to do what was reasonably required, and offer them support. When all else failed, they moved to the idea of withholding money. The Director General had met with the Municipal Manager of Rustenburg, and they still could not make headway in terms of what the municipality needed to do. The Department first gave the Rustenburg municipality a letter for a moratorium on expenditure, and thereafter moved to the final stage, which was the withholding of funds with the idea that they would be able to force compliance.

They had a challenge around the taxi industry and the characterisation of the previous decisions made. He disagreed with Mr Mabhena when he said that the invitation had just been a publicity stun. For the Department, it was a genuine platform for consultation, but the National Taxi Association had indicated that they would not honour the invitation because they wanted equal treatment with the South African National Taxi Council. The Minister had spoken, and had been meeting with the NTA even beyond the lekgotla. The Department had also met with NTA and briefed them about the outcomes of the lekgotla, and that the Minister wished the NTA could participate in the implementation of the process. The Department had also informed NTA that the Minister would announce in due course the appointment of an Eminent Persons Group (EPG) that would look at bringing NTA and SANTACO into discussions to look at the structure and format of the unity and cohesion of the industry.

The Department was working on the outcomes of the lekgotla, and had already met with the SA Banking Council to look at the financing process. It had also met with the Treasury on the public transport fund and a future subsidisation model for the industry. It had spoken to the Department of Employment and Labour about their sectoral determination. It had offered SANTACO and the NTA seats on the steering committee to participate. There had been a delay because of the misunderstanding between the parties.

He agreed with Mr McDonald that it was the responsibility of the Department to ensure that all the stakeholders participated, so they were doing all they could to engage SANTACO and NTA, even though there were a lot of disagreements.  If SANTACO and NTA were encouraging their members not to accept the taxi recap because they wanted to put pressure on the government to increase the amount of the subsidy, the Department, SANTACO and NTA were going to struggle to reach an agreement.

The clarity the Department had provided to both organisations was that the money was not a vehicle replacement allocation -- it was a subsidisation for someone’s vehicle which was not roadworthy. He disagreed that they were only talking to the taxi industry without taking actions. They were listening to several submissions made by the industry and assisting accordingly, including during the Covid-19 lockdown.  When the taxi industry suggested that their businesses would collapse and required a better loading capacity allowance, the Department had looked at that and consulted widely, and had gone out of its way to accommodate the issues the industry was raising.

The change in bursaries for non-employees to higher education institutions was to reflect the new programmes that were coming. The Department was looking at the new curriculum for training of aviation students and the developments in maritime. It was also looking at this development from the high school level, having already agreed with the Department of Basic Education on aviation and maritime. It had broadened the terminology because the payments were not only for bursaries, but also included all the other programmes the Department had.

It had forwarded the request for court decisions against PRASA and settlements, and requested PRASA to compile it. The Department would follow up on the request and submit the list to the Committee.

The issue raised on the matter of the targets set in the budget for direct service delivery was that they required alignment. The matter had been raised previously, and the Department had taken it to heart. It had engaged Treasury and the Department of Planning, Monitoring, and Evaluation (DPME), and it was agreed that the alignment would be better seen where the money had gone to, since the Department transferred 90% of its resources to entities and provinces. The Department paid significant attention to the core service delivery issues that must be driven at that level. The entities were commissioned by the Department to develop and deliver services to the residents and citizens of the country on its behalf. The sector indicators were directly linked to service delivery. The role of the Department was political and administrative oversight, and to provide support where necessary. Proof of service delivery and alignment would be seen in the consolidated indicators. In the consolidated indicators the Department was at the mercy of the provinces and the entities to be able to deliver them. The Department therefore had to make sure it had robust entities that were capable of doing the job. It was slightly different with provinces, because provinces were constitutionally another sphere of government, so the process of holding them accountable was very challenging. The Department tried to navigate around the complexities and difficulties of the challenges. That was the reason why the Department had higher percentages in the spending every year.

When the Department requested the number of passenger trips on the trains, the numbers PRASA gave them were higher than the ones presented to the Committee. The Department had requested proof to indicate that the trips had been undertaken. It knew that the ticketing system was not effective, so it had asked for numbers that could be backed up by documents, and when that was done, the numbers dropped to the ones that were presented to the Committee. When the Department went to the new shareholder compact for the new financial year, it was most likely to ask PRASA to also undertake a new passenger census so that the Department could know what it was dealing with and set realistic goals. Ever since the collapse of the rail infrastructure, hard lockdown and the closure of corridors, not all the numbers had returned. Modal shift patterns were unknown, so the Department was prioritising the single ticketing system. The single ticketing system would also help the Department curb potential fraud and claims that were made by large companies.  

The appointment of security personnel had begun. The last time he checked, PRASA had already appointed 2 300 security personnel and the Department would update the Committee as the numbers were updated from time to time.

There had been a reduction in the target for drunken driving operations because most of the Department’s resources were redirected under the Central Command, and the Command led operations which may not be inherently just drunk driving operations.

The Department would explore how bicycles would be provided, and what could be done in those places where bicycles could not be used because they were not conducive. It also wanted to revisit animal drawn carts under the non-authorised transport policy. It had been told that it should not include animal drawn carts in the urban areas as they would pose a danger to motorists. The Department was considering the use of carts for rural areas, especially the ones that had bad roads, as referred to by Mr McDonald.

The Department accepted the issue raised by Mr Chabangu, and had done a review of the Provincial Roads Management Grant (PRMG) for all the provinces. It had done a presentation to the National Council of Provinces (NCOP) on the PRMG.

It had asked for a grant to be able to get high-speed rail. It was looking at the level of the Gautrain, or even better, in terms of speed. It was aware that the Johannesburg-Durban high-speed rail link was ranked as the 3rd most viable project that could be undertaken on the African continent by the African Union’s high-speed rail framework. There had been an expression of interest in the matter -- the Japanese, through Mitsubishi, had done a pre-feasibility study, and a China railway engineering company also did a pre-feasibility study of its own. They had both said the project could be feasible. The Department had applied for a feasibility study grant that had been offered by the People’s Republic of China.  A private partnership for a feasibility study would not have been approved by the Treasury if the Department had said they would outlay funds from their budget for that purpose. The Department could make a presentation on the matter if the Committee wanted it to.

The Department shared the same frustrations on the issues of transformation in the aviation and maritime sectors. The MOA the Department was speaking of was to address the issue of transformation, in order to have leverage. If the Department controlled and influenced the programmes that were offered at university and provided funding for them, it would be an opportunity for it to bring more black people into the programme. The Department would also lead an aviation academy, as it had started with discussions with Air Traffic Management Services (ATMS) to work on that. Pre-lockdown the Department had planned a huge campus with ATMS, as it was doing a lot of training in aviation-related matters for African countries.  The Department thought this would help it and help black people to enter these areas.

It was not correct that there were no ships in the harbours -- the Department had only stopped passenger liners, and cargo ships were still operating.

Most road accidents were a result of speed, because people were driving at night at a higher speed because they knew there were no officers and there were fewer cars on the road. Now that it was level one, the Department wanted to release some of its officers so that they could go back to their work and focus on unroadworthy vehicles, drinking and driving, and high speeds, because those were the three main contributors to road accidents.

He agreed that the Department needed to make more money available for training. For the first time in that financial year, the Department had set aside much more money for training, and had set an ambitious target for itself. The training that could be done virtually was being done, but those that required supervision could not be done during the lockdown.

The Department would run the proposal on station masters by PRASA to consider. Money had been made available for railway station upgrades, but there had been capacity constraints and slow spending.

He said the Department could be blamed for the Moloto Corridor letter that the Minister had sent to the districts and everybody concerned. People had written to the Minister asking when the project was going to commence, and the Treasury had responded that there would be no money outlaid for the project. What should they tell the people? Should they tell them the truth? Some companies had offered to roll out the project using their own money, and the government would be the guarantee, but the Treasury had rejected the offers. He had answered the question of the Moloto railway on several occasions, but it kept on coming back. Maybe he should do a presentation on it, because it was also a subject of investigation by the Public Protector.

He acknowledged that the Department should apologise for the changes that had been made in the presentations.

Chairperson’s comments

The Chairperson thanked the Director-General, and said that he had done what he had required him to do. There were resolutions that the Committee and the Department had agreed to in terms of the several reports, as indicated by Members. The Committee had instructed it to submit quarterly reports on the Moloto corridor project. He said Committee should close the Moloto matter, and report back to the people of Moloto. He appreciated that the Department acknowledged that there was a lot of work that still needed to be done.

He asked if Mr Matlala was the DOT’s new CFO?

Mr Moemi confirmed that he was.

The Chairperson said that the Committee had requested to be updated about those important developments as they happened. He had been requested to deal with the issue of the appointment of the CEO of PRASA, which the Committee had only seen about on social media, and this was not the understanding the Committee and the Department had in terms of trying to improve their communication. The DG should take it upon himself to inform the Committee, because he was running the Department in its entirety. Did PRASA have a new CEO?

Mr Moemi confirmed that PRASA had appointed a new CEO.

The Chairperson acknowledged the negative impacts of the pandemic. The Committee needed to be positive and give the Department the benefit of the doubt in terms of the situation, because even the Committee Members were still working from home. Having underspent the amounts they did, it was quite a lot. The DG needed to go back and tell his team to pull their socks up, as that was what the Committee was saying -- that they should stick to the agreements the Committee and the Department had. He asked the DG to impress upon the entities to submit their reports to the DG as the overseer in terms of section 195 of the Constitution.

The situation on the roads was bad. The Committee took the point that the stimulus package was not forthcoming as it had been promised, although the Committee would have loved to hear the many reasons when it came to that.

The Committee accepted the DG’s apology for the mix-up with the presentations.

The matter of the invitation to the taxi indaba was dealt with, and the Committee had agreed that it should improve its communication. The invitation had been sent via email, and the Committee had said it did not receive it -- the Committee Secretary had said it might have been lost amongst many emails. The issue was to correct the matter going forward.

He had been invited to the policy-making meeting on civil aviation.

He appreciated the robust engagements the Committee had with the Department and the manner in which they handled issues. It was not dealing with personal issues, but issues that the Members had raised so that the people of South Africa got what was due to them. The Committee was a platform where they helped each other to ensure that the people received what they had been promised. 

He thanked the DG and asked him to give a report back to the Minister so that they all moved in unity. It would be prudent for the Committee to get the reports they were supposed to receive, but had not.

Committee programme

The Chairperson said he wanted the Members to talk about the going back to the people of Moloto to give a report back. He asked the Members to set the date.

Mr Mabhena said he was open to any suggestions. He reminded Members that the following day they were attending caucuses.

The Chairperson said that the caucus was meeting on Friday.

Mr McDonald said the date should come from the Chairperson. In the meantime, the Committee needed to invite the Treasury and get clarity on how a project that was deemed feasible was later not feasible. The reasons why it was deemed not feasible did not make sense. The number of people that used to live there had increased by maybe 40%. To do justice for the people of Moloto, the Committee needed to have a serious discussion with the Treasury and the Department.

The Chairperson suggested that they should get a presentation from the Director General as soon as possible, and see if they could not get the Treasury to be with the Committee during the presentation and communicate with the people of Moloto towards the end of the month.

The Members agreed with the Chairperson.

The meeting was adjourned.

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