Marine Living Resources Bill

At the request of a member, the meeting opened with a prayer asking for guidance on finalising the Bill.

Condolences were expressed to a member on the loss of her mother, and welcomed her back to the committee.

The first part of the meeting was scheduled to deal with a presentation from the department on international conventions, to which the department was involved. The presentation was given by Mr. Brian Egan.

Mr. Egan had a document which was handed out to the committee summarising all the conventions. He rushed through it briefly, as the chair had specified that there would be a time constraint. He apologised that the acting Director General, Mr. Hanekom, was not there, but he was busy. In addition he appologised that there were not enough copies of the entire document as he had only found out the day before that he was required to be there.

The chair expressed grave concern that Mr Egan had such short notice, as the letter inviting him to the meeting had gone out on the 5^th February, and the DG had had lots of notice.

Mr. Smith (IFP) asked about the costs of the conventions to the department in terms of contributions to international funds, and in respect of staffing and implementation. Mr. Egan replied not immediately available. However, his document had contact names for each of the conventions, and the information could be requested from them.

Ms. Mabudafhasi (ANC) strongly requested that the department bring the committee on board more often, and not only when they needed a convention ratified. The department said that strong directives from the DG had gone out to all staff requesting them to inform the committee of events.

Ms. Chalmers (ANC) asked about programmes that may have been put in place to make conventions real, and has applications for funding from UNNEP been made. Mr. Egan replied that post-Rio conventions may have access to the Global Environmental Facility. Three successful projects have been granted funds, and seven others are in line.