Election of the Co-Chairpersons

Meeting report

Opening
Ms Nola Matinise, Committee Secretary, began by stating that the process of electing a chairperson is guided by the National Assembly (NA) Rule 158 and the National Council of Provinces (NCOP) Rule 153. Given that it was an Ad Hoc Joint Committee, the rules would be read out with Joint Rule 140, which states that the Members elected by both the NA and the NCOP would be co-chairpersons.

Election of the co-Chairpersons
She called for nominations, beginning with the NA chairperson.

Mr C Frolick (ANC) was subsequently nominated and elected as the co-chairperson from the NA component.

Mr J Nyambi (ANC, Mpumalanga) was nominated and elected (in his absence) as the co-chairperson from the NCOP component.

Chairperson Frolick clarified that this would be a new Committee. The previous Committee’s mandate ended when it reported to the House last year November and both Houses adopted the report. It was then recommended that the Committee should continue with its work, especially since another disaster was subsequently declared. The Committee also needs to attend to some of the issues which went unresolved in the previous year.

Chairperson Frolick asked Ms Matinise to refer to the documents which were earlier circulated to the
Committee Members, so that they may be tabled in the meeting.

Ms Matinise mentioned that the documents which were circulated were: the agenda for the meeting, the draft programme of the Committee, a status update on the progress made to assist affected municipalities on the flood disaster, relief and recovery, and the last document was the presentation on the content side.

Discussion on the way forward
Chairperson Frolick mentioned that they would not be able to review the aforementioned documents during the meeting because they were pressed for time and mindful of plenary sittings commencing shortly. He invited any comments on the draft programme. The damages caused by the disaster have especially affected Port Saint Johns negatively. He would speak with his co-Chairperson to arrange a virtual meeting next week to discuss the necessary documents. He asked the Members to review all the documents they have been given, in preparation for next week's meeting. Representatives from various political parties would be invited to the meeting to give comment and suggestions on the presentations and site visits which will be carried out.

The Chairperson adjourned the meeting.