KZN PED: Implementation of Committee oversight visit recommendations & National School Nutrition Programme (Challenges and Mitigations); with Minister

Basic Education

02 May 2023
Chairperson: Ms B Mbinqo-Gigaba (ANC)
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Meeting Summary

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ATC230303: Report of the Portfolio Committee on Basic Education on an oversight visit to KwaZulu-Natal Province (Zululand, King Cetshwayo and Harry Gwala Education Districts) dated 28 February 2023

The KZN Provincial Department of Basic Education briefed the Portfolio Committee on the status of implementing the Committee's recommendations following their visit to the province earlier in the year.

The Department reported that they had made progress on the appointment of support staff, eradicating pit latrines, and ensuring that children could get clean water. It said the reason behind being unable to deliver on learner transport was the financial constraints brought on by budget cuts.

The Committee expressed their disappointment and utter dissatisfaction with the way in which the Department had failed to ensure the proper rollout of the National School Nutrition Programme (NSNP), which had resulted in children going hungry in KwaZulu-Natal. They asked the Department to ensure that there was consequence management for all the officials involved who had contributed to meals not being provided to children in the province. The Department gave an assurance that investigations into the NSNP saga were being carried out, and they would report back to the Committee once these were completed.

The Members questioned the Department on the lack of timelines for implementing the Committee recommendations that they had said they were acting on.

Meeting report

The Chairperson said that the Committee had earlier indicated that they needed to have a briefing on the Accelerated Schools Infrastructure Delivery Initiative (ASIDI) and Sanitation Appropriate for Education (SAFE) programme, which had not been possible as the Committee was on leave. It would try to squeeze the meeting in before the end of the quarter.

The Chairperson indicated that Ms D Van Der Walt (DA) had resigned as a Member of the Committee. The Committee bid her farewell, and wished her the best in her endeavours.

Minister’s remarks

Ms Angie Motshekga, Minister of Basic Education, started by bidding farewell to Ms Van der Walt, and thanked her for her support and hard work.

She said that the presentation being made by the Department today had been made in collaboration with the provincial Department in KwaZulu-Natal (KZN). She was grateful for the opportunity to explain or clarify some of the issues. On the National School Nutrition Programme (NSNP), she said that the Department had a budget of R9 billion, and R2 billion went to KZN. The programme was run concurrently with KZN under a conditional grant. The NSNP was run under a memorandum of understanding (MOU). The Department had been interacting very closely with the province on discussions that needed to be held on how to deal with the issues surrounding the NSNP.

She said that their first priority was to try to do everything possible to ensure that children being fed in schools had been restored to normalcy. There were other difficult issues that both KZN and the DBE had to deal with, especially in the management of the contract. She admitted that there had been historic problems with the programmes, not only with KZN, but they were using different models of feeding and some of the models were not very efficient.

The provincial Department at KZN would explain that they had been using a model that was not very efficient, where they give different service providers contracts to feed in schools. That model was operating as if trying to run a family through a spaza shop, because it meant that the money that was supposed to feed the children ended between the school and the shop. She said that if money was not going to non-governmental organisations (NGOs) with a central buying power, almost 60% of money was lost in between, meaning one had to go and buy from the supermarkets.

The Department's ideal model looked like a textbook model, where they agreed centrally on the method, so there was a system that they were using in the provinces that were working very well and never had any problems. KZN was trying to move away from an inefficient system and into a system where the central procurement could benefit from the economies of scale, because, with the price increases and inflation, the money being given to schools was getting scarcer. The whole idea was to look at possible efficient ways of feeding children in school.

MEC's remarks

Ms Mbalenhle Frazer, KZN MEC for Education, said the provincial Department appreciated the Committee's visit as it had assisted them in ensuring that they delivered quality education for learners in KZN. They had made great progress, even though the budget cuts prevented them from maximising the impact, and the reports would speak to the progress.

She said that it was clear that they did not have a smooth start to the NSNP when they tried to implement the new model due to logistical glitches on the part of the service provider, which had led to many of the things not being delivered to the pickup points. To ensure that the learners got food, they tried to assist wherever they could to resolve the logistical glitches, but it later became apparent that they were facing a magnitude of challenges that went beyond the logistics. They had made efforts to resolve the issues, but they were more than they could handle as a province. There were a lot of items that were short, and they had discovered that some which were supposed to have been delivered to schools were missing, and they were still checking everything.

They were now at the stage where the service provider had decided to withdraw from the tender. This forced the Department to swiftly implement measures to make sure that the rollout of the NSNP was not disturbed at all

 As of today, all of the schools were going to get meals, as the Office of the Premier was assisting the Department. All the MECs were out and about in the schools to ensure there was progress to that effect. It was unfortunate that children had not been able to get food and as a Department, they were embarrassed, but she hoped that they would be able to implement the programme in a manner that would minimise the challenges that may come up.

Implementation of Committee oversight recommendations

Mr Mbongiseni Mazibuko, Chief Director: Curriculum Development Programmes, reported that they were running a number of programmes in a bid to improve school safety by relying on the school safety framework and school safety protocol. To that end, they were running a number of programmes that included ensuring that school governing bodies (SGBs) had a school safety committee. The importance of these committees was to allow participation by all stakeholders to ensure the safety and security of teachers and learners. The Department was giving capacity to these committees. They were also linking schools with police stations, noting that more schools than police stations were prone to vandalism and burglary.

On the curriculum, he said that robotics and coding was a new subject that six of the 12 districts were piloting in all the grades. To fund the piloting of the programme, the Department was using different finance sources, including the skills levy, conditional grants and the norms and standards. They were giving capacity not only to the teachers from the schools where the programme was being piloted, but also to those from e other schools. The Department had rolled out the coding and robotics full steam and was ensuring that they were able to handle the curriculum.

Mr Lalisingh Rambaran, Chief Financial Officer (CFO), confirmed that the Department did make transfers to the districts for the various categories of schools, including special and independent schools. All the transfers for the 2023 financial year had been captured, and for those schools that were non-compliant, there was a policy that learners must be denied the use of norms and standards funding, because of poor management. When that happened, the district responded to provide those services. All transfers had been captured, and the only problem experienced was that the national Department had implemented cash flow budgeting in the province. This prevented schools from getting money from the provincial treasury in timeous manner. They were also getting assistance from the DBE to approach National Treasury so that funds could be transferred timeously when required during certain periods of the year.

Ms Jabu Khoza, Chief Director: Rural and Inclusive Education, referred to infrastructure issues at Kwamame and Zamimpilo, and said that through the equitable share, the Department had provided for the procurement of ten buses that had been prioritised for special schools. This would be done by beginning of July. Regarding support staff, the Department would appoint 333 support staff in the special schools, which constituted 33% of the 1 167 posts created through attrition. They would be filling all those vacant posts soon, and anticipated that by 1 July, the support staff would be deployed to those schools.

There had been engagement between the departments of education, health and social development, on professional staff for special schools. Social workers would be allocated to special schools to provide support. They were also deploying the transversal team members that constituted a therapist, a psychologist and an educator, to those special schools.

Regarding learner transport, she said that all special schools, including Vulekani, would be receiving buses in July. She said the province was experiencing budget constraints due to its budget allocation. There were a lot of learners who were not being transported. The province was finding it difficult to provide transport to deserving learners who were on a waiting list.

The Department had a school rationalisation roll out plan, in terms of which they would be closing down about 1 000 schools by 2028. The MEC had issued a statement of intent to all the schools scheduled for closure in the next financial year. The MEC would consider any objections, and the responses would be given thereafter.

Ms Weziwe Hadebe, Chief Director: Infrastructure Planning and Delivery Management, referred to the issues regarding water supply at Kwamame, and said that the Department had resolved to install a borehole. It would be completed by the end of May. They were also in the process of drilling a borehole for Zamimpilo Special School to resolve its water supply problems.

She said the Department had a plan to eradicate 1 377 identified pit latrines. They had engaged contractors who had so far completed the eradication of 192.

Mr Thanduxolo Cele,   Deputy Director: Strategic Management, Monitoring and Evaluation, said the specification of items for the NSNP programme were of very high quality, and were unaffordable due to rising food prices. The budgetary constraints that they were facing did not allow for breakfast and other benefits that the Department used to be able to get.

He said that in March, the province had appointed 1 765 small, medium and micro enterprises (SMMEs) to supply and deliver food in accordance with the programme. The challenges of non-delivery included the failure to supply and deliver food items, and delivery of insufficient quantities at most collection points. The challenges of no delivery had occurred mostly with Pacina Retail, who failed to deliver or delivered insufficient quantities of food until 25 April, when many schools did not receive food. After receiving reports on the non-delivery to schools, the Education MEC then directed the Head of Department (HOD) and top management to swiftly engage the main service provider with the aim of finding solutions to the glitches that have been identified. A provincial plan was developed to ensure that learners were fed, while assisting the main service provider to resolve the logistical glitches. A logistical plan was designed to ensure that all food items as per the approved menu, were delivered to different distribution and collection points.

The HOD had formed a task team compromising of officials from legal services, finance, the NSNP and communications, to develop implementation plans for May, and ongoing

Discussion

Ms S Mokgotho (EFF) asked the Department why it had awarded the NSNP tender of such a magnitude -- worth billions of rands -- to a single service provider. What recovery plan had the Department put in place to recover the teaching time lost at schools when teaching was suspended? She observed that a number of cases had been placed in the hands of educators, and asked what considerations the Department had given to that phenomenon.

She asked to what extent the lack of transport had exposed learners to dangers on their way to and from school, and what measures had the Department put in place to address the matter.

She noted that for Zamimpilo School, the Committee had recommended that it be supplied with additional support staff and professional staff. The report indicated that the Department had prioritised the appointment of support staff across the province, but failed to mention the timelines and how many posts were going to be allocated to Zamimpilo School. There was also no information as to whether the posts had been gazetted and what targeted interventions had been made in relation to each of the Committee's recommendations.

Dr W Boshoff (FF+) said it was worrisome that the NSNP had had to be interrupted due to problems that the Department had mentioned in the report. He asked whether the only criteria used in determining whether or not to close down a school was the size and distance, or if it was purely a numbers game. He said the closure of schools may eliminate some management problems for the Department, but was not beneficial to the children relevant to their situation. Therefore, he wanted to know all the criteria used to determine whether a school would be closed or not.

Mr P Moroatshehla( ANC) lamented that the NSNP was a national disaster -- a calamity -- and that the Department could have done better. The fact that KZN had to be subjected to the situation had to be condemned. He asked what measures the Department had put in place since 12 April to deal with the calamity, adding that any remedial measures should go from the DBE to all the provinces.

He asked what the levels of performance of the teachers and children were in the coding and robotics programme. He wondered to what extent a need analysis was done to ensure that learner transport resources were prioritised in a manner that learners who were vulnerable in special needs schools were catered for.

Mr B Nodada (DA) said that the NSNP in KZN was in chaos, and must be categorised as a catastrophe despite any justification put to the Committee by the Department. Children had been left hungry, and the one meal a day that they had been guaranteed at school, they had been unable to get for several days. These were some of the issues that contributed to child stunting. Some children depended on the NSNP to get one meal a day.

 He complained that the timelines provided by the Department gave no indication as to when consequences were going to be put in place for the person who thought it would be a brilliant idea to centralise the school nutrition programme. Centralisation worked in certain instances, but in the vast majority of cases, it was an actual catastrophe. The gravity of the situation should not be sugar-coated.

When reporting about the timelines and the sequence of events, as well as the reasons behind why food was not delivered on time, the provincial Department also needed to inform the Committee of the remedial measures being taken, who was being held accountable within their own ranks, and not just the agent that was put in place to distribute the food to the SMMEs.

He asked whether the Department had revisited the centralised model to come up with a different and permanent model that was going to be consistent for the new financial year and years to come.

He asked whether an investigation was happening regarding the school nutrition programme in KwaZulu Natal and the non-delivery of food for children. If there was none, then the Department should say when the report would be available. When it was available, he asked that the Committee gets it to interrogate it and hold those officials who allowed the chaos of food not being delivered to be held accountable.

Mr Nodada asked whether the Department had identified its own officials that had contributed to awarding such a massive contract to one person, one supplier or one company, meant to distribute food to various medium and small enterprises, and if the Department was taking any measures against such officials. He wondered what plans the Department had to ensure that the meals that the children were supposed have, were increased from one to two meals a day.

He asked for the reasoning behind the Department asking for a R900 million overdraft from National Treasury and the circumstances that had led the DBE to move forward in achieving some of its targets in KZN.

What was the Department doing to ensure that learners affected by a lack of transport were catered for, considering that they qualified for scholar transport. What was the cause for the number of children not being able to access learner transport increasing over the last two years, as he had noted that the Department had outsourced that responsibility to the Department of Transport in the province?

He asked how many learners with special needs attended mainstream schools, and whether they were fully supported in terms of learner transport. Was the Department on track to fill the 333 vacant posts by June 2023? Had the multi-sectoral meeting with social development in Gauteng occurred in the province, or was it still being scheduled? 

What had the Department done about his proposal that it engage with universities or tertiary institutions that offered social workers and psychology students that had to do practicals at other hospitals the option to be posted instead at hotspot areas, where there behavioural and or safety challenges?

He asked why there was no provision for learner transport for learners that attended full service schools. The Department had identified a number of schools that did not have water from municipal reticulation. Some of these schools formed part of the borehole programme. He asked what the plans for the remaining number of schools that were not part of the programme were, to ensure they had access to clean water.

He asked the Department to confirm the number of pit toilets in the province, and how many of them were part of the SAFE programme that the Department had initiated. How many of these toilets were being dealt with from the infrastructure grant to eradicate pit toilets in KZN?

Ms M Van Zyl (DA) said the presentation was not the same as the one that Members who were on the oversight visit had received, particularly on the issue of the Kwamame classrooms which were extremely hot in summertime and extremely cold in the winter. She had found the response by the DBE KZN arrogant when they said that they could use the norms and standards when installing air conditioners in classrooms. She explained that Kwamame was a quintile one school, which was not a fee paying school, and was therefore wholly dependent on the norms and standards for everything. She therefore wanted confirmation from the Department whether they got the full amount, as stated in the gazette for the norms and standards, or if it was merely a paper budget. The abolition facilities at Phumanyova School had a ratio of one to 62 children. The school was designed for 1 000 learners and currently has 2 000 enrolled. The Department had just simply stated that the school must not enrol more than 1 000.

During the oversight visit, she was shocked that children had to come from over 19 kilometres with private transport. The dedication to providing learner transport was part of the South African government’s commitment to ensure universal access to quality education. The responsibility for ensuring learner transport should lie with the Department of Basic Education, and not with the Department of Transport. A joint meeting with both departments may assist in charting a way forward over the issue of learner transport.

On the Pacina Retail saga, she asked for a copy of the presentation made, as it was different from the one that had been sent to the Committee. It was unfortunate that children had gone hungry under the watchful eye of the MEC of Basic Education of KZN. The Department had wanted to centralise the function by cutting out the local players on the ground, but the plan had severely backfired and obviously, the children had gone hungry. What consequence would management take place in the Department for this blunder, or would it pass the blame elsewhere?

Ms N Adoons(ANC) said there were serious challenges when it came to learner transport in KZN, and it was something that the Committee had been trying to get to the bottom of. In her opinion, it would not be addressed any time soon if one went by the presentation made by the Department owing to the inadequate budget to address the issue. It was a serious matter, because the number of learner dropouts was increasing. She hoped that by the time the Committee met the National DBE on the issue of learner transport, it would provide an updated progress report on how the Department had engaged with the provincial treasury to address the matter. She did not think the comments or questions by the Committee would assist the province when there were no adequate finances to address the issue.

She appreciated that the Department had addressed some of the recommendations of the Committee. She asked if there were adequate resources to assist school safety committees in executing their functions. She also wanted to understand the functionality of the Quality Learning and Teaching Campaign (QLTC) school governing bodies, and also how they were being assisted with resources and skills to ensure that they could also do their work

She asked whether there were police stations assisting schools with safety measures. Did the Department have plans to ensure that it provided resources to schools experiencing a decline in learner enrolments due to parents opting for better resourced schools? What was the extent of this problem?

Ms Adoons asked what measures the Department was taking before closing non-viable schools, and whether it involved the communities and parents before they came to the conclusion of identifying and closing the non-viable schools. Did the Department have an integrated approach with other sister departments in dealing with the challenges and backlogs in the education sector? Could it highlight the progress, challenges and future plans, beyond the schools that had been visited?

How exactly was the Department ensuring that the NSNP benefited local farmers and cooperatives? She asked whether the Department could ascertain the value and extent of the impact of the model they were proposing.

What sustainable measures could be developed to reduce the need for mobile classrooms, despite this being impacted by migration?

She asked how many projects had been planned and aligned to address the issue of pit latrines in the province.

She inquired if a quality assurance assessment had been made before awarding the NSNP tender. She also asked the Department to tell the Committee about the consequence management that was going to be put in place to address the matter.

Mr S Ngcobo (IFP) said he had decided during the presentation that he was not going to be participating as far as a number of issues were concerned. In his opinion, the question of whether the Department engaged the communities or the parents prior to closing non-viable schools was an academic exercise.

He said Members may not be aware of how bad the situation had been in KZN. He was a resident of the province, and he had made an attempt to reach the Department, but it was unfortunately during the time when it had decided not to pick up calls. The DBE had failed not only KZN but the nation on the issue of NSNP. This was the second scandal involving tenders and big money. The first involved the provision of sanitary towels for learners. He said he did not accept that the DBE had given work to someone, and that person had instead come back to inform it how impossible that task was.

In his view, it seemed like the services of the company had been terminated, and they had been told to say that they had withdrawn. He wondered how a political party had organised a media briefing to tell the people of KZN that the services of a company had been terminated, but not the Department. Why was this action not raising more questions than answers? He was raising these issues because this was a province he had lived in, and he understood most of the things that were happening.

Mr T Letsie (ANC) said that in February, the Committee had visited a school called Dingeka, and had been informed that it was a technical school, but had lacked a principal since the retirement of the former principal. During the presentation, the Department mentioned that three people had applied for the position, but none had been appointed. During the visit, it was also indicated that there was no transport, and some children walked more than three kilometres because that was the only technical school. There was also an indication by the Department of their intention to convert it into a full technical school. The school had been given the budget of a normal school, not a technical school.

He expressed his joy that non-educator posts that had been frozen for special schools seemed to be unfrozen, and would soon start to be filled. He noted that the Department had indicated that it intended to procure one bus within the current financial year for Vulekani Special School. This should not be allowed, because the current financial term would end in March next year. The Department should understand the urgency of a special school not having a vehicle. He wondered why the Department could not set the nearest timeline.

Mr Letsie said he understood the sentiments of the MEC on the NSNP, but the issue was that the company had gone through a normal supply chain process, and in that process, the Department had felt that it was fit to deliver the services. From day one, the company could not deliver the services. In his view it was not solely that company's fault. This meant that the systems were not watertight if the Department did not want to accept that its problems may be bigger than they seemed. There seemed to be a problem internally. He asked if there was no one in the provincial DBE responsible for checking whether certain boxes had been ticked accordingly.

In his view, heads must roll within the Department. The company could not shoulder the blame alone. He felt that the internal problems within the Department were the biggest contributing factor, including the adjudication and evaluation specifications. The management of the project by the Department was supposed to make sure that the clients/students interests were taken care of, but that did not happen, so heads must therefore roll.

DBE's responses

Mr Hubert Mweli, Director-General (DG), DBE, said that he shared the sentiments of the Committee in bidding farewell to Ms Van der Walt.

He said he agreed with the views of the Committee on the NSNP. The Members had every right to express how they felt about the issue. He understood their frustrations. What had happened was extremely unfortunate, and he lacked the words to express how badly the Department had failed the nation’s children.

However, he pleaded that the Committee should not be too hasty with their demands for heads to roll. The Office of the Premier was involved in carrying out its own investigation into this tender. Other Chapter 9 institutions, including the Auditor-General (AG), were interested in checking what had happened. He was worried about what would happen if the findings of the investigations were varied. Credible institutions were going to look at the matter very soon, and everyone would know of the findings on the matter. The Department had received reports at several meetings ever since the developments had surfaced, but they were of the opinion that the DBE must appear before the Committee and engage with it. DBE teams had also generated reports, and it would be better if reports also came from external institutions.

On the oversight visits, Mr Mweli apologised to Ms Van Zyl regarding the reports, saying they were prepared when others were celebrating Freedom day in KZN until the day before the meeting. Some of the details in the presentation were different because they were working with the KZN Department to ensure that all the facts had been put before the Committee.

Regarding the oversight committee, he admitted that there was still work to be done. The DBE's provincial office in KZN was haemorrhaging money, and there was a possibility of an imminent collapse. It was one of the Departments that had carried a deficit over many years due to budget cuts.

The DG said that the learner transport was funded through the equitable share, and when budget cuts happened, the equitable share was usually the entry point. This had been raised in the Department's meeting with National Treasury. Something urgent needed to be done. He explained that the provincial Department's hands were tied, as they operated within the context of policies and legislation. Therefore, they could not do certain things because of legislative constraints, which was why they would refer to norms and standards. There were inefficiencies within the system in all the provinces.

Ms Khoza responded on the appointment of staff for special schools, and said that the Department had identified four posts that had been created through attrition -- one cleaner, one driver and two teacher aides -- and those posts would be filled by July. This would be done locally by the schools themselves. The attrition of 333 posts would be covered in all the targeted schools.

The Department had had a meeting with the Department of Social Development (DSD) on the subject of social workers, which Dr Mkhize had chaired. All the departments were well represented. Resolutions were made, and each of the departments adopted them for implementation, which had since commenced. The relevant departments also executed the deployment of specialists. However, the Department had noted Mr Nodada’s proposal to engage higher learning institutions, which they would carry out.

Ms Khoza said they had noted that learner transport there was a great challenge, but they have encouraged the parents to take children to schools of need nearby.

She said special needs learners who were in full service schools were those who had mild to moderate learning barriers, and those learners in high need of support were being referred to special schools. However, they were aware that all learners needed to be prioritised, and they had a list of 160 000 learners on their priority list awaiting transport. They hoped that once the budget was increased, they would be able to cater to them.

Regarding the closure of small and non-viable schools, Ms Khoza explained that some schools died a natural death when parents would just vote to remove the learners resulting from population migration. They had regularised the closure of the small and non-viable schools. The MEC had gazetted these schools, and they were also receiving submissions and objections from those communities, and were engaging with them and SGBs. She gave an assurance that the DBE did not close schools at all costs. There were provisions in the guidelines that provided context factors that would prevent them from closing down a school, that needed to be considered.

She confirmed that learners at Kwamame would receive a bus soon. By July, the ten buses being procured would be brought to the Department so that they could dispatch them to the identified schools.

An official from KZN DBE said there had been a positive uptake on coding and robotics, and that was why in the report, it was stated that even those teachers who were coming from the schools that were not in the piloting stage were allowing themselves to be exposed to orientation and capacity building. The level of performance was still at the pilot stage. The provincial Department was working with the DBE to finalise the curriculum. Only when it was finalised would it be included as part of the schools' curriculum, and appear on the report cards of the learners.

He said the learners had lost about eight days of teaching and learning time. It was not a massive issue, and had mainly affected primary schools. A learner recovery learner programme was being developed so that the eight days lost could be accounted for. The school safety committee was supported by circuit managers, and also by their colleagues' management. The QLTCs were functional, as they were sub-committees of the SGBs and were also supported by circuit managers.

He said the Dingeka secondary school would be converted into a full technical school. It was in the programme of the Department. They had noted that it was not a full technical high school and offered only two technical subjects, but they had been able to offer support, particularly pertaining to those technical subjects of curriculum that the Head of the Department must authorise. They were ready to advertise for the position of principal. They had appointed an acting principal, with all the powers.

Adv Bheki Masuku, Senior General Manager: Branch Corporate Management, KZN DBE, said there were more than 1 000 special schools posts, but they had agreed to advertise only a third of them. The human resources department was engaging with the South African National Association for Specialised Education  (SANASE) to agree which ones would be filled first, because, due to financial constraints, they could not fill all of them at the same time. He confirmed that the bulletin would be out by 15 May, and they hoped to have filled those posts by the end of June.

Ms Hadebe referred to the borehole programme, and said that the remaining schools were receiving water from the municipalities through water tankers. 2 713 schools had water bills, but the Department had since paid them and they had been reconnected. The plan was that once they had completed 1167, they would move to phase two until they had exhausted all the schools.

On pit latrines, she said that the SAFE programme was funding 587, while the province was funding 790. She confirmed that the Department had plans to construct more than 192 latrines, including refurbishing others.

MEC Frazer echoed the sentiments of the DG, and said the reports on what had happened were going to assist the Department in identifying the loopholes, even within the DBE. By the time the political parties had gone to the media on the NSNP, the HOD had tried to address the issues pertaining to breach of contract. 

She said that the provincial Department subjected themselves to the leadership of both the Portfolio Committee and the national DBE, and were committed to doing what was expected of them.

Report of the Portfolio Committee on Basic Education on Budget Vote 16: Basic Education

The Chairperson went through the report and invited comments and corrections from the Members.

Mr Ngcobo referred to the Committee’s recommendation on the Funza Lushaka bursary programme. He questioned whether it was stating that recipients should be prioritised ahead of everyone else- even those that had struggled to pay for themselves. He therefore asked the recommendation to reflect that both Funza Lushaka graduates and those from other institutions should be placed in schools.

The Chairperson said that the correction would be made.

Mr Nodada said they had been asked to submit questions and comments, to which they had not received any answers. The same questions and comments seemed not to feature in the report. He therefore wished to reserve his party’s right to support the report.

The Chairperson invited Members to adopt the report with the corrections made, noting Mr Nodada’s reservation.

Mr Moroatshehla moved for the adoption of the report. Mr Letsie seconded.

Adoption of minutes

The Chairperson went through the minutes of the meeting of 18 April.

Mr Moroatshehla moved to adopt the minutes, and Ms Adoons seconded.

The meeting was adjourned.

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