Department of Communications Rationalisation Bill: briefing & Shortlisting of IBA Councillors

The Department gave only an informal briefing on the Department of Communications Rationalisation Bill [B23-98] as the s 76 tagging of the Bill by the Joint Tagging Mechanism (in terms of s197 of the Constitution) differs from that of the state law advisors who categorise it as a s75 bill. Its aim is to transfer all the employees of the Department of Communications to the public service. Since 1968 the finances and staff of this department were separated from the public service and the organisation was run along business principles. After the 1991 transfer of the postal and telecommunications services to public companies, the Department was left with purely governmental functions. The Joint Standing Committee on Finance recommended that the financing of the Department be incorporated in the main Budget and it is now proposed that the Department's staff be reincorporated into the central public service.

No retrenchments will be effected and the staff will be transferred as a whole.

The committee decided that it could not consider this Bill until they have received input from both the SABC and the IBA. Both these bodies have requested more time to consider the Bill. The IBA have specifically requested a further ten working days.

The subcommittee had finalised a short list of seven candidates (potentially nine could be selected) for interviews to fill the 3 IBA councillor positions. These were announced as:

Ms N Bulbulia

Ms M Della Togna

Ms L Lloyd

Mr J Matisson

Mr M Mthembu

Mr L Mtimde

Mr J Tugwana

However Mr L Green (ACDP), who had had to leave the subcommittee's meeting early, objected to the final list and requested that Mr B Roebert be added to the list. Ms D Smuts (DP) stated that, in terms of compromise, they would then request the addition of Mr R Louw. The meeting took a ten-minute break to allow the members to caucus amongst themselves on whether to agree to these last-minute additions. The additions were approved.

The interviews of all nine candidates will take place on Tuesday 17 March (9am - 2pm).