Appointment of Commissioners for National Youth Commission; Offices on Rights of Child & Status of Disabled Persons Strategic Pl

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CHILDREN, YOUTH AND DISABLED PERSONS JOINT MONITORING COMMITTEE

CHILDREN, YOUTH, AND DISABLED PERSONS JOINT MONITORING COMMITTEE
2 June 2006

APPOINTMENT OF COMMISSIONERS FOR NATIONAL YOUTH COMMISSION; OFFICE ON THE RIGHTS OF THE CHILD AND OFFICE ON THE STATUS OF DISABLED PERSONS STRATEGIC PLANS: BRIEFING

Chairperson: Ms W Newhoudt-Druchen (ANC)

Final version of relevant documents
Office on the Status of Women 2006 Programme of Action
Office on the Rights of the Child Strategic Plan 2005-2009
Gender, Disabilities and Children Programmes Performance Review Meeting

SUMMARY
The Committee proposed five names of Commissioners to be forwarded to the President for consideration. A delegation from the Presidency: Office on the Rights of the Child / Office on the Status of Disabled Persons presented their Strategic Plans for 2006. The Committee expressed dissatisfaction with the presentation as the documentation did not contain enough information to allow Members to ask relevant questions. The delegation apologised, indicating that they were not given enough time to prepare for the briefing as they had been invited at short notice. It was agreed that a final presentation with documents would be forwarded to the Committee.

MINUTES

Appointment of National Youth Commissioners
The Committee proposed that the following names be forwarded to the Office of the President for consideration as Commissioners:
Nobulumnko Nkondlo, Mothubi Bodba, Olwethu Sipuka, Ntombikayise Sibhida, and Vuyiswa Tulelo. Members agreed that out of the fifteen short-listed candidates, these proved to be the candidates that the Committee was confident would be able to work well as commissioners in the National Youth Commission.

Offices on the Rights of the Child (ORC) / Status of Disabled Persons (OSDP) Strategic Plans presentation
Dr Ellen Kornegay, Chief Director of Programmes in the Presidency, with Ms Mabel Rantla, Director: Office on the Rights of the Child, and the Chief Financial Officer, presented the Strategic Plans of the Offices on the Rights of the Child, Status of Women and Status of Disabled Persons, highlighting various programmes that the Office had embarked on. These included: gender mainstreaming, Accelerated Shared Growth Initiative South Africa (ASGISA) strategy, internal management and cohesion, cluster mainstreaming strategy, reduction of poverty and unemployment by half by 2014, provision of skills required by the economy, combating crime and corruption, a progressive role in Africa and the world.

The Office on the Rights of the Child (ORC) aimed to enhance integrated policy implementation for accelerated children’s rights delivery, to facilitate, support and consolidate children’s rights initiatives towards a better Africa and a better world, and to improve management, access and sharing of children's rights related information in Government and civil society.

The Chief Financial Officer presented the budget (see presentation for the full report).

Discussion

Mr D Gamede (ANC) and Ms T Tobias (ANC) informed the delegation that the manner in which the Presidency had prepared its Strategic Plan was not proper as it did not allow Members to understand the actual budget and costing of programmes. This prevented the Committee from interrogating the Presidency, as some information was not clearly stated. Mr Gamede added that in future, documentation should be forwarded to the Committee on time.

Dr Kornegay replied that it was unfortunate that the Committee had not given the Office enough time to prepare for the presentation. She then promised to forward an updated version of the documents to the Committee on 6 June 2006.

Mr Gamede commented that issues of disability were very sensitive and serious. He indicated that it was for that reason that the Presidency needed to ensure that programmes were carefully monitored. He was concerned that the presentation did not indicate budgetary commitments to monitoring programmes.

Ms Tobias expressed concern that the Office on the Status of Disabled Persons (OSDP) was incapacitated, working with only one professional. Did the Presidency have a plan in place to correct that? She also asked for clarity on where the Presidency was able to allocate money to various programmes if there was no policy in place to regulate allocation of funds.

Mr A Madella (ANC) shared the same sentiments, indicating that it was not good that there was only one professional that worked on the programmes in the OSDP. Did this suggest that there were no disabled people who could undertake the same duties? He added that the Presidency needed to treat issues of disability with great caution and seriousness.

Ms Kornegay replied that for a long period of time, the OSDP had been incapacitated, and an effort had been made to ensure that this did not happen in the future. She responded that the Integrated National Disability Strategy had played a key role in guiding the Presidency on allocating funds.

Ms J Chalmers (ANC) commented that it would be useful to receive a breakdown of how much money had been spent on each programme.

Dr Kornegay replied that it could help if each Programme was invited separately to present their strategic objectives. Members would then be able to interrogate them.

Ms Tobias commented that there could be dangerous implications if the ORC waited on the United Nations to complete all its documents before a South African policy on the ORC was finalised.

Ms Kornegay answered that there were processes that the Office was engaged in while waiting on the United Nations. She added that the reason there were delays was because the UN policy document would influence the South African programme and the actual policy. However that should not be understood to mean that there was no work being done.

Ms Chalmers proposed that it would be beneficial to all interested parties if there were working interactions between the Presidency and the Committee, specifically with the OSDP.

Mr L Nzimande (ANC) agreed with Ms Chalmers, adding that the programmes did not need to be invited to interact with the Committee, but should see the importance of establishing and maintaining working relations with the Committee.

The Chairperson thanked the delegation indicating that the Committee looked forward to meeting with the new members of the National Youth Commission. She hoped that members from the ORC as well as the OSDP would be invited to brief the Committee on the progress made.

Committee minutes for 24 and 26 May 2006 were adopted.

The meeting was adjourned.

 

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