Annual Report and Financial Statements: Department briefing; Committee Annual Report: adoption

Meeting report

FOREIGN AFFAIRS PORTFOLIO COMMITTEE
9 November 2005
ANNUAL REPORT AND FINANCIAL STATEMENTS: DEPARTMENT BRIEFING; COMMITTEE ANNUAL REPORT: ADOPTION

Chairperson: Mr D Sithole (ANC)

Documents handed out:
Department Presentation on Annual Report 2004/2005: PowerPoint presentation

SUMMARY
The Department of Foreign Affairs briefed the Committee on its principles, guidelines and activities regarding its key strategic priorities for 2004/2005. It also presented its initiatives regarding capacity building and its Financial Report for 2004/2005.

The Committee sought information on the status of a number of the Department’s observer missions. The Committee was concerned about the Department’s inability to manage its debts and the fact that it was saving when it should be spending the money allocated to it. The Committee was also concerned about the fact that the Department’s staff did not seem to have any analytical capacity and that it did not seem to coordinate its Annual Report, Strategic Plan and Budget. The Committee sought further clarity on the Department’s HIV program, its employment programs and its procurement of overseas property.

The Committee adopted its annual report on the understanding that there were certain outstanding issues that would be referred to and addressed in the future.

MINUTES

Department of Foreign Affairs presentation
Dr A Sooklal (Acting Director-General) briefed the Committee on the Department’s Foreign Policy Principles as well as the guidelines the Department followed when implementing its policies and conducting its activities. He then discussed the Department’s actions concerning its key strategic priorities for 2004/2005. These priorities were consolidation and implementation of the African agenda; South-South cooperation; South-North dialogue and partnerships; multilateral diplomacy and projecting a positive and accurate image of South Africa and Africa.

Mr M Apelani (Deputy Director-General of Corporate Services) briefed the Committee on the capacity building that had taken place within the Department which most importantly included the transformation of the Foreign Policy Service Institute (FSI). This transformation had enjoyed high priority during 2004/2005 and the appointed task team had made various recommendations based on international best practice. These recommendations included reviewing the organisational placement and structure of the FSI, its programmes, curricula, entry requirements and assessments. The Human Resource management of the Department was presented and included the vacancies that existed in the Department, its recruitment processes and the representivity of the Department. The Human Resource management plan for 2005/2006 was introduced.

The Department’s Financial Report for 2004/2004 was also presented. The Department’s annual allocation amounted to R2, 546 billion while its additional revenue amounted to R37 million. The Department’s actual expenditure amounted to R2, 352 billion which meant that 92.39% of the Department’s allocation had been spent. The Department had saved R120, 6 million in 2004/2005 after it had committed R73 million to a number of projects. The Committee was also briefed on an options analysis and feasibility study regarding the Department’s procurement abroad.

Lastly, a number of matters of emphasis had been raised in the Auditor General’s report and the Department presented its programme of action to address these issues.

Discussion
The Chairperson highlighted that a number of issues had been raised by the Committee in its previous meeting with the Department which had promised to come back to the Committee with answers. The Chief Director had briefed the Committee on RSI and had said that he would liase with his colleagues who were involved with the issues that had been raised and would come back to the Committee. One of these issues was regarding peace-keeping and the Department had agreed to send certain documents on this issue to Committee Members. The Chairperson was simply reminding the Acting Director-General of this situation so that the Department did return with feedback at a later stage.

Ms F Hajaig (ANC) asked three questions. Firstly, when planning its budget for the following year where was the Department planning to open new missions? Secondly, what was the status of the Tanzanian mission in Dar es Salaam as she was aware that there had been negotiations and the Department had been involved in the process of buying a building in the city for its mission? Lastly, there had been problems surrounding the Department’s mission in Lagos. How far had the Department come in sorting out the problems concerning this mission’s running and functioning?

Mr Sooklal explained that the Department currently had thirty five missions in Africa. The Department was planning to have missions throughout Africa and it was still largely underrepresented in the French speaking African countries. The Department would at the beginning of the next financial year analyse the funds allocated to it and would then decide what countries it would enter. The Department had sent a team to Lagos and the situation seems to have improved. The Department would continue to monitor this situation.

Mr Apelani responded that he had visited Tanzania the previous week. There were a number of challenges as the Tanzanian market differed greatly to the South African market. The Department had initially found an 8500m² piece of land. Yet the building on this piece of land would only be 1500m². The problem was that Tanzania did not allow the subdivision of land which meant that around 6500m² of this land was not usable. However, the Department had found an available area near the other foreign embassies and in the central business district and was hoping to acquire this so that it could set up a mission in the country.

Mr M Skosana (IFP) had a number of comments he wished to make and the Department could respond to them if they wished to. He noted that the Department’s Annual Report was an excellent reflection of its events, its structures as well as its involvement in international structures. However, it had failed to evaluate the impact of the Department’s programmes in other countries and states as well as on ordinary people’s lives. The Department had begun its briefing to the Committee by listing the foreign policy guidelines it followed when developing and implementing its policies and conducting its various activities. At what point would the Department evaluate the impact it had made when following these guidelines? How would the Department collect the data to make this evaluation as it was also dealing with a situation of power balances between many different countries?

The second issue he wished to comment on was the issue of Africa Diaspora Conference. This was a good principle, but he felt that South Africa needed to be more aggressive in order to make its programs more concrete especially in the fields of technology, skills and development. South Africa seemed to concentrate more on people outside the African continent who could be investors. The Department should look to Africans and even African Americans who could provide assistance.

Dr Sooklal responded that the oversight role the Committee played was extremely important in shaping the work done by the Department and showing where the deficiencies were in this work. However, his experience as a former parliamentary official made him believe that there seemed to be a breakdown between the Department and the Committee in the dissemination of information. The Department regularly produced reports on South Africa’s progress regarding regarding the New Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD) and Africa as a whole and it was important that the Committee received these reports in the future. The Department had been involved in a number of activities and it was extremely important that these be shared with the Committee.

Dr Sooklal agreed with Mr Skosana’s comments regarding the Africa Diaspora Conference. He was not sure if the Committee had received the outcomes of this Conference as it had included a comprehensive plan of how the Department planned to deal with some of the issues that had arisen during the Conference; and included the issues Mr Skosana had raised. He believed that documents of this nature had to be shared with members of the Committee as they were extremely important.

Ms M Njobe (ANC) first asked a question around the Auditor General’s Report. In the previous financial year the Auditor General had mentioned his concern over the poor debt management of the Department. However, this problem still seemed to exist a year later. The Department seemed not to have any structures in place to address this problem. How would it ensure that it would be successful in coming up with a solution? She felt that the main cause of this problem seemed to be that urgent situations arose where the Department had to step in and pay certain amounts of money on the behalf of other Government Departments. However, the Department then failed to collect the money from these Government Departments. Was she correct in believing this to be one of the main roots of the problem? If so, what was the Department planning to do to drastically change the current situation?

She also referred to the R8 million the Department had committed out of its savings to the Mali Trust Fund. Was it only the responsibility of the Department to carry out the Mali project? Was it not the responsibility of other Departments such as the Department of Arts and Culture? She then referred to the development and establishment of African Union (AU) organs. Were there any of these organs that still needed to be formed and if there were, which organs were they?

There also seemed to be no NEPAD program for South Africa. If this was the case, why did a program not exist for South Africa as it was one of the main leaders of NEPAD and it could therefore not lead if it did not have its own NEPAD program? Lastly, what structures did the Department have in place to meet its targets of employing those who were physically disabled? Was the Department employing people who were deaf and who suffered from autism as these two groups were often excluded?

Lastly, she stated that there was no doubt that the Department had tried its best to project a positive image of South Africa. However she was unsure whether the South African people and media in the country were doing the same. How did the Department feel about this issue and was what was it doing to make South Africans aware of the responsibilities they had to project a positive image of the country?

Dr Sooklal referred to the Directors-General workshop that had been held on 30 April 2004. This workshop had created the African Renaissance Committee when it discussed the issue of a NEPAD program. This Committee’s Secretariat was based in the Department and it provided reports on the progress of NEPAD. One of the main problems surrounding the South African NEPAD program was that Cabinet had decided that all Government Departments needed to play a role in NEPAD. This meant that all the Government Departments seemed to have their own programs on NEPAD. The problem was coordinating these programs and it was the responsibility of the African Renaissance Committee to do so. A meeting had been planned for the beginning of December which over three hundred officials from the Departments would attend. This workshop would try to then coordinate and standardise under the African Renaissance Committee all these programs so that South Africa would then have one comprehensive plan on NEPAD. This had to be done, as a large part of Africa’s agenda for NEPAD had actually been home grown in South Africa. This comprehensive plan would hopefully be presented to the Committee in the future.

On the issue of the positive image of South Africa, he highlighted the fact that the President as head of the ANC had dedicated a report to this issue a while ago. The President expressly said in this report that South Africans were often the worst enemies of South Africa. A decision was taken at a Heads of Mission meeting in February this year to determine how the Department could focus on expatriates. There was an extremely large South African diaspora living outside the country and some of this group were ambassadors for the country while others were extremely bitter and anti-South African. This situation often rested on how the Department engaged with these expatriate groups. The Department had been engaging with these negative South Africans in order to make inroads with them and had been visiting countries such as New Zealand and Australia to do so. The Department needed to look at more ways to improve this situation.

During the opening of Parliament this year the President had also launched the season of hope and the Department had told all of its missions to project this theme in their activities. The President had continued with this theme during a recent Heads of Mission meeting. The country had also enjoyed an economic growth of nearly 5% this year which pointed to this season of hope. The new Vodacom and Barcley’s Bank deals had also meant that this year had seen the largest inflow of foreign direct investment (FDI) into the country ever. However, this situation had not been projected to other foreign investors and countries to show confidence in the South African economy. It was a challenge for all Government Departments to project this on a local and global front.

He agreed that the Mali project should not be the responsibility of only the Department or even government as a whole. The President had hosted a dinner recently for this project where the private sector had been required to give funding to this project. He hoped that this would continue to happen in the future as the R8 million the Department had allocated was definitely not sufficient for the completion of this project.

Mr Apelani added that Mali had hosted the Africa Cup and therefore did not have the funds for the Timbuktu project. South Africa therefore stepped in to support them through the Department and Mali still had to pay this money back.

Mr Apelani stated that Ms Njobe’s opinion on the debt management problem was correct. The National Treasury had decided that no other Government Department was allowed to make payments abroad due to the danger of scams. The Department had therefore been required to pay certain amounts of money on the behalf of other Government Departments who then not repaid this money. The Department had met with the National Treasury in order to deal with this issue. The Department had proposed that the Treasury implement a process where it suspended the budgets of Government Departments and then paid the money that was owed directly to the Department. However, the Government Departments would then also be expected to acknowledge the fact that they owed money. The Department hoped that this situation would improve in the future.

Mr L Labuschagne (DA) asked how many times the Department planned to reorganise its FSI as it seemed to occur every three years. This problem needed to be addressed as appointing new people and sending them on international trips made no positive changes to the Department or the work it did. The entry requirements that a person needed to be employed in the Foreign Service namely, a bachelor’s degree and being able to speak French had also not changed since he had been a diplomat in the 1980s. If the FSI was being reorganised once again, had the Department been sending out inadequate people as foreign diplomats in the past?

Secondly, the large number of vacancies that existed within the Department had to be filled. It was extremely frustrating when vacancies existed as it prevented officials from doing their work in other countries and many of them were trying to do their best with absolutely no assistance. It would be interesting to see what the turnover rate was between the levels of Deputy Director and Chief Director in the Department. Staff retention was an extremely important issue and it was vital that something be done about the low levels of retention in the Department.

He noted that there were 94 Heads of Mission. How many of these were career people from within the ranks of the Department and how many were from outside the Department? It was important that career people from within the Department made up this number; however there had to be a reasonable balance between this group and the group of people from outside the Department.

He then referred to the Department’s Annual Report. He argued that it appeared to be merely a travelogue of where the Minister and Department officials had travelled to throughout the year. An example was that Zimbabwe was an important country for many reasons yet all that was stated in the report was that an observer mission was sent to the country. He suggested that in the future the Annual Report be aligned with the strategic objectives of the Department.

The Chairperson agreed with this point stating that the continuous restructuring of the FSI led to the continuous restructuring of other sections in the Department. Yet, nothing positive seemed to come from this restructuring as a few years later the FSI would be restructured once again. The Department had to decide at some point that it could not manage the FSI on its own and should then outsource this management. The FSI should not be graded as a branch within the Department as it would then be severely restricted in a number of areas which included it having to fight for resources with the other Department branches. The FSI should remain a separate entity that had its own budget which it would account for through the Department.

Mr Apelani noted the comments that had been raised surrounding the reorganisation of the FSI and would take these comments back to the Department. The Minister had also requested a report on this reorganisation regarding what the plan was, what had been achieved and the way forward and the Department was planning to submit this. He agreed that the Department could not continuously transform the FSI in the future with no actual results.

Ms Nompozolo (Chief Director of Human Resources) responded on the issues of vacancies. She highlighted the fact that due to a previous Resolution the Department only begun advertising vacancies at the end of 2003. In the 2003/2004 financial year the Department employed 282 people. Out of this number 103 were internal promotions which obviously meant more vacancies were created in the Department. In 2004/2005 the Department employed 355 people. Out of this number 116 were internal promotions once again creating more vacancies. This year there were 27 Deputy Directors that were appointed and 25 of these were internal promotions. It was clear that the Department had a track record of continuously creating vacancies. However, another issue that needed to be considered was that if one filled all the Department’s funded vacancies it would remove a degree of flexibility and the ability of the Department to absorb more people.

She further highlighted that out of the 94 Heads of Mission, 49 were political appointees and 45 were career appointees. A balance had therefore been maintained. The Department had not conducted a turnover analysis between the levels of Deputy Director and Chief Director. However, it could do so in the future.

Mr M Sibande (ANC) commented that a number of issues had been raised in the previous meeting with the Department. One of these was the issue of rentals. It was worrying that the Department’s savings were less than what was spent on rentals. The Department’s briefing had also mentioned that feasibility studies had been done regarding procurement options abroad. However, it had not given any deadlines for this procurement of overseas property. The Department had also mentioned employment equity initiatives under its Human Resource Management but once again had not mentioned any deadlines. He was glad that vacancies had been recognised as a problem by the Department but by when would this problem be solved? All these issues affected the Budget of the Department.

He also wished to know the status of South Africa’s relationship with Iraq. The Annual Report indicated that there had been an agreement with the Iraqi ambassador to South Africa. Did South Africa’s relationship with Iraq end with this agreement or had there been further advancements? Zimbabwe also was continuously mentioned yet the focus should rather be on Southern Africa as a whole. There were a number of countries in Southern Africa with problems and all these countries were depending on South Africa as a leader in this region.

Mr Sooklal highlighted the fact that the interim government had never been keen to give its opinion on Iraq. However, after the January elections when the transitional government had been formed it took the decision to interact with Iraq and bilateral engagement with Iraq was then reactivated. There had been discussions with the Deputy President of Iraq in the previous month and he had put pressure on South Africa to become more involved with Iraq. However, South Africa could not really do so until the situation in Iraq had become more stable. An interim Constitution had been adopted and future elections and a new government was planned. However, there had been progress in this relationship.

Mr Apelani replied that the Department was expected to report to the Department of Labour on their employment equity progress annually. The Department hoped that its new employment equity programs would be approved and implemented before reporting to the Department of Labour the following year and this would obviously then be the deadline.

Although the R260 million the Department spent on rentals sounded a lot, it was renting about 414 properties around the world. If the Department tried to buy all these properties the costs would definitely not be covered by this R260 million. The Treasury could not provide the capital funding for this. The Department would have to enter into private partnerships to acquire the funds that would be needed and it hoped that this could happen in the future. The Department had even approached the private investment community and it might also invest in the property of the Department in the future. However, it was an extremely long process to acquire property and buildings. However, the Department wished to develop a strategy document that would contain a comprehensive plan for future procurement of property.

Dr A Luthuli was of the understanding that the under-spending of the Department was of concern to the Committee as an oversight group. She felt that the use of the word "savings" by the Department in its briefing to the Committee was inappropriate. She congratulated the Human Resources Management section on launching a human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) program within the Department as this issue was a huge problem in all Government Departments. However, how was the Department planning to encourage its staff to take part in this program? For example, how was the Department persuading its staff to get tested for HIV/AIDS and what support did it provide after the tests had been done?

Mr Apelani stated that she had made a valid point regarding the use of the word "savings". The Department would not classify all money left over from its projects as savings in the future. Only Foreign Exchange would be classified as savings in the future while the rest would be classified as under-spending.

Ms Nompozolo responded that the HIV issue was sensitive and the Department had therefore approached it with a twelve-hour information session that had been extremely useful and had been presented to all Department branches. This information session had encouraged staff to get tested and had informed them of what to expect when being tested. The testing took place at the Department’s employee awareness centres which were comfortable, private rooms. The staff also had to make appointments to be tested so that it prevented staff members running into each other and therefore upheld the issue of privacy. The Department did not require staff members to return to their desks after being tested.

Pre-test and post-test counselling was also provided by the Department regardless of the outcome of the tests. A toolkit had also been created by the Department and was given to staff members and it informed them of the services provided by the Department as well as services available outside the Department in the Pretoria region. This toolkit was also aimed at the families of employees. The Department was recognised as being one of the best Government Departments when dealing with HIV and the reason for this was because it had inserted its HIV program within the whole area of wellness.

The Chairperson had read the Department’s Strategic Plan for the future as well its Annual Report and its Budget. However, it seemed that whenever the Department presented its Annual Budget it did not seem to talk to its Strategic Plan. The Department’s Strategic Plan also set out the objectives of the Department yet its Annual Report did not then refer to these objectives. An example of this was that the Department’s Budget made a commitment to assisting Lesotho to move away from its status as a Less Developed Country (LDC) and this was aimed to be achieved by 2020. There obviously had to be programs in place to achieve this goal yet these were not mentioned in the Annual Report. These three documents could not be linked or co-ordinated. The Department had to pool these documents in the future.

The Department had also complained to the Committee at its previous meeting that, during public hearings, the Department’s analytical skills had been continuously questioned. The Department at this meeting had denied this, but when studying various documents such as the Annual Report the existence of this situation could be possible. He enquired if this was the case and if a crisis situation existed within the Department. This lack of analytical skills could be linked to the Department’s employment issues. The Department had recently employed around 200 people. At what level had these people been employed? The Chairperson presumed that they had been employed at the entry level which meant that there was a huge staff complement at the bottom levels of the Department while there was a lack of capacity at the higher levels which meant that the quality of the Department’s products weakened as they moved through the various levels.

He also felt that it was important to recognise that intelligence and education were two separate issues. The existence of a bachelor’s degree as an entry requirement to the Foreign Service excluded those people who had equivalent qualifications such as diplomas. It was vital that opportunities existed for those people who had studied at colleges to be absorbed into the system.

The Chairperson was also concerned about the fact that the Annual Report had not included what the Department had delivered during the previous year. He also felt that to appoint consultants to check the work that was done by ambassadors was a tremendous waste of resources and expenditure. The ambassadors were stationed in their areas for over three hundred days of the year and were therefore the most exposed to their areas and were the authorities concerning information about their areas. If information was needed on a specific area, the ambassadors should be approached directly as their knowledge and judgement should be trusted.

Dr Sooklal highlighted that the President had signed an agreement in 2001 whereby South Africa would assist Lesotho in moving away from being regarded as a Less Developed Country over five years. He had brought a briefing document to the meeting on this agreement and it included the projects that had been planned to achieve this aim. However, he did not believe that the targets set in this document would be met by 2006. The Director General had visited Tanzania recently and there had been engagement to determine how this plan could be fast tracked.

He agreed that the Department’s Strategic Plan, Annual Report and Budget did not speak to each other and this situation would be investigated back at Head Office. It was important that these documents intersected in the future.

Mr Apelani agreed with the Chairperson on his views regarding people who had studied at colleges and highlighted the fact that the Department had mistakenly omitted that they also accepted diplomas in their presentation slides. However, the Department always included that it recognised equivalent diplomas in its advertisements and it also recognised all prior learning. He also stated that the Department would look into converging and linking its Budget, Annual Report and Strategic Plan.

Ms M Nompozolo added that the Department’s main goal was to employ candidates who were competent to do the work of the Department, so qualifications were not always as important. The Department also used certain wording in their advertisements that applied to people with equivalent qualifications and prior learning. At the higher levels the Department became even more specific by using "qualifications and/or experience" which showed that qualifications were less important than experience.

Mr M Ramgobin (ANC) constructed his observations differently. He acknowledged the fact that the Department had under-spent and understood the reasons why this had occurred. He felt that two issues were extremely important. Firstly, he referred to the issue of the Department’s analytical capacity and remarked that although it had done a great deal of work, the Department had not produced a document on what South Africa had done in respect of NEPAD. Many people spoke about South Africa’s involvement and its negotiation powers in other countries. Many Government Departments were also involved in these issues other than the Department of Foreign Affairs. It was extremely important that the Department reflected on its analytical capacity so that it could reflect on the foreign issues and activities South Africa had been engaged in. For some South Africans, Africa began with Zimbabwe and ended there. There were no references made to other African countries such as Burundi and the Democratic Republic of Congo. How many South Africans understood that there were various sections in the country’s embassies such as defence or the role South Africa played in energy conservation and distribution in the region. All these deficiencies seemed to be linked to the Department’s lack of analytical capacity as South Africans were unsure of South Africa’s activities and role in the foreign sphere. Even parliamentarians were ignorant of foreign affairs issues. The ignorance of South Africans prevented them from engaging in foreign affairs processes.

His final issue dealt with the personnel of the Department. While he was in Hong Kong a few years ago, he witnessed an employee at the Consulate advising Members of Parliament on an issue regarding Taiwan which highlighted this employee’s ignorance. Members did not know how to handle the situation as it showed this employee’s lack of understanding of the country’s foreign policy. He therefore asked how many people working in the Department were remnants of the past and who still held a particular political ethos. He did not wish to be harsh, however he felt that there was the distinct possibility that the Department was beholden to tendencies of the Apartheid past due to some of the personnel working in the Department. If this was the case it was a fundamental problem that would seriously affect the Department if not dealt with.

The Chairperson agreed with Mr Ramgobin’s comments. He used his own personal experience to explain why he agreed. At the Heads of Mission Conference that occurred in Somerset West a diplomat told President Thabo Mbeki that his ANC letters created problems for foreign diplomats working outside the country. He therefore requested that the President write separate letters for diplomats working outside the country. However, the Department was the domain of the President and he developed his policies in terms of the Constitution. Therefore if this diplomat represented the orientation of personnel in the Department it was extremely problematic and worrying for the future.

Mr Labuschagne stated as a point of order that the Committee Members had put Department officials in an embarrassing position. A witch-hunt should not occur because of the actions of one official. Speaking as an ex-diplomat, he understood the point the official had been trying to make at the Conference. When the President wrote as head of the African National Congress (ANC) it was a party matter and when he wrote as the Head of State it was a state matter. There was a difference between party matters and matters of the state; yet often people confused the two.

The Chairperson replied that the issue had been raised at the Heads of Mission Conference not in a general party meeting. As this issue had been raised at the Conference, it had taken on a completely different context and therefore had ceased to be an ANC issue. It was an extremely serious problem if people could not understand that the context of the issue had changed due it being raised at this Conference. The President acting as head of the country had been expected to respond. Yet if the person had an issue regarding ANC matters he should have approached the party’s regional office and raised it there.

Mr Labuschagne declared that he no longer wanted to be part of the meeting.

The Chairperson stated that Mr Labuschagne was entitled to his opinions but if he walked out of the meeting he had to be prepared to take the consequence that would follow.

Mr Labuschagne agreed to take these consequences and walked out of the meeting.

Mr Ramgobin highlighted that the Heads of Mission Conference had consisted of people from different political affiliations not only ANC diplomats. However, the Chairperson had also failed to mention the fact that the diplomat who had addressed the President had been an active ANC member. The point that Members had been trying to make was that there seemed to be a lack of capacity to even conceptualise what the President was saying as Head of State and as Head of the ANC. The Department had to create an aggressive approach to address this deficiency as its employees were exposed to the international community.

Mr Sooklal responded that the Department did have the capacity to analyse and was constantly producing reports and documents from its missions as well as from head office. However, the range of activities and issues it reported on were not static and it was a challenge for diplomats to keep up to date with the continuously changing events occurring in other countries. It was also a challenge for the Department to ensure that its diplomats were continuously re-educating themselves on all these foreign policy issues. It had tried to address this problem by developing a Policy, Research and Analysis Unit. However, this unit had only one staff member in the past which had also been problematic as the unit had not had the capacity to do the work that had been expected of it. There were now around seventeen staff members working in this unit. It was therefore clear that the Department had realised this deficit and was trying to deal with it.

Ms Nompozolo added that the Department had implemented competency assessment centres which tested its prospective employees’ cognitive abilities. These cognitive abilities were linked to analytical capacity. The Department had also started a program where it investigated particularly its senior managers’ cognitive abilities and styles. The Director General could brief the Committee on the Department’s cognitive abilities in the future. The analytical capacity of the Department was enhanced by seminars given for senior managers. Different topics were presented at these seminars. An example was a recent seminar that dealt with the topic of military issues in relation to diplomacy. These seminars forced the staff to think more deeply on a wide range of issues.

She highlighted the fact that the Director General and the Deputy Director General were actively involved in the process of sending diplomats to the Department’s missions. They took part regularly in sessions where they made decisions regarding the deployment of diplomats and ambassadors to the Department’s various missions around the world. The Chief Directors chaired the panel that dealt with the deployment of diplomats and it made recommendations, but ultimately the Director General and Deputy Director General made the final decisions. Lastly, she stated that the bulk of those who were employed by the Department entered up to the Deputy Director level while very few outside people directly entered the Department at the higher levels.

The Chairperson recommended that the Committee adopt its Annual Report with the understanding that there were certain outstanding issues that would be referred to and addressed in the future.

The Committee agreed and adopted the Report.

The meeting was adjourned.