Committee Reports on Department Budget hearings and Annual Report: adoption

ARTS AND CULTURE PORTFOLIO COMMITTEE
6 June 2006
COMMITTEE REPORTS ON DEPARTMENT BUDGET HEARINGS AND ANNUAL REPORT: ADOPTION

Acting Chairperson: Ms P Tshwete (ANC)

Documents handed out:
Committee Report on the Department 2005/06 Annual Report
Committee Report on Hearings on 2006/07 Department Budget
Draft Committee Programme

SUMMARY
The Committee adopted with amendments its Committee Reports on the Department 2005/06 Annual Report and on 2006/07 Department Budget as well as its Programme.

MINUTES
The Committee elected Ms Tshwete as acting chairperson who immediately raised the issue of punctuality and warned the committee secretary to give proper notice if there were any changes to the schedule.

Committee Report on the Department Budget Hearings for 2006/2007
Mr Lekgetho believed that the report did not give a complete reflection of the Committees work and a proper account of all the institutions that had appeared before the Committee.

Ms D van der Walt (DA) said that she had trouble approving a document that had incomplete and incorrect information. She proposed that in future, the dates that the entities appeared before the Committee be included in the report. She asked the committee secretary to prepare a list of all the entities, and their respective dates, that had appeared before the Committee as well as those that had not.

Mr Lekgetho agreed that there needed to be a record of all the entities. He emphasised that the Committee needed to exercise its oversight as these entities received funding from the Department and the National Arts Council.

Mr M Sontoyo (ANC) reiterated the view that not all entities that had made submissions to the Committee were in the report.

Ms van der Walt suggested that the Committee have a strategic workshop at the beginning of the year so that they could plan properly on how to accommodate the entities.

The reports were adopted with amendments.

Minutes of Committee Meeting: 30 May 2006
Members expressed their unhappiness concerning the poor level of English employed in the minutes. Citing a plethora of examples, they complained that the document was characterised by typographical and grammatical errors.

Mr G Lekgotho (ANC) stressed the need to look at all grammatical errors, before adoption, because this could affect the substance and content of a document. He pointed out that due to these errors, the construction of certain sentences in the minutes did not reflect the intention of the comments of members.

The Committee decided that the necessary corrections had to be made before the minutes could be adopted.

Draft Committee Programme for the Second Quarter of 2006 (July-Dec)
Ms van der Merwe asked the Committee to refrain from organising meetings on Thursdays during the ordinary plenary sessions.

Mr Sontoyo observed that the programme only catered for the Committee to receive people and not for the Committee to go out.

Ms van der Walt noticed that the Department intended to make a presentation on a Bill before the Committee. She remarked that she had not received the Bill as yet and hoped to get it timely.

The Acting Chairperson concurred with Ms van der Walt and commented that some Departments deliberately delayed issuing Bills early.

The programme was adopted with amendments.

Announcements/Invitations
The Committte Secretary read out an invitation from the National Archives Committee. Mr H Maluleka and another ANC member would attend the function.

The National Library of South Africa had sent a letter expressing its desire to make a presentation to the Committee.

It was agreed that the Acting Chairperson would confer with the committee secretary to find a suitable date to accommodate that request.

The meeting was adjourned.