Cinematographic and Audio-Visual Co-production RSA-France Agreement (postponed)

Meeting report

Opening remarks
The Chairperson acknowledged apologies from the Minister, who was attending a cabinet meeting where he would be presenting; from the Deputy Minister, who was abroad on official business and from the Acting Director General Khumalo who had been delegated by the Minister to attend the Gothenburg Book Fair. The Minister has appointed Ms Sumayya Khan as Acting Director General to lead the Department.

The Chairperson said that it was not a problem if they are not present. The meeting would continue as it was a briefing on the agreement signed between South Africa and the French Republic. He then raised the problem at hand. The new briefing document was different to the one received from the Department of Sport, Arts and Culture (DSAC) the previous week. This caused confusion in the sense that Members could not be expected to apply their mind to the document provided in the early hours before today's meeting. He asked the Committee if they should continue with the new document that they had not read.

Ms N Ndongeni (ANC, Eastern Cape) said unfortunately she did not even have the new document and they could not continue because the new document would cause confusion since they had already gone through the document originally provided to them. Therefore, the meeting should be postponed.

Ms E Nkosi (ANC, Mpumalanga) agreed that they must not continue with the meeting. It is going to be to be difficult to continue with the meeting because the Committee did not have enough time to go through the new document. 

The Chairperson said that as matter of principle they do not engage with documents that they did not get well before the meeting. This meeting should be moved until they have enough time to go through the new document, so that they will be able to be engage in the meeting and apply their mind when the meeting officially takes place again.
 
Mr M Bara (DA, Gauteng) asked if the document given out during the meeting was the correct one.

Ms Sumayya Khan, DSAC Acting DG and Deputy Director-General: Recreation and Sports Development,  apologised for the confusion about the new document that came through. The confusion occurred because the secretary earlier sent through a document that was an overview which was not in a PowerPoint presentation format. Her colleagues were supposed to create a PowerPoint presentation earlier than this morning but this did not happen as planned. She agreed that it is not fair on the Committee that the new document should be dealt with. There are procedures and standards to be followed and she took a full responsibility. She promised to give the Committee proper documents in advance so that the Committee could read them, take notes and be able to engage when they appear before the Committee again.

The Chairperson stated that Members now have confirmation about what document to engage with when the next meeting takes place.

The meeting was adjourned.