Department of Foreign Affairs Budget and Strategic Plan 2007/08

FOREIGN AFFAIRS PORTFOLIO COMMITTEE
28 March 2007
DEPARTMENT OF FOREIGN AFFAIRS BUDGET AND STRATEGIC PLAN 2007/08

Chairperson: Mr D Sithole

Documents Handed Out:
Department’s Draft Strategic Plan Document
Department’s Strategic Plan Research Document

Audio Recording of the Meeting

SUMMARY
The Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) briefed the Committee on aspects of the DFA’s strategic plan and priorities for the period 2007/2010. There was emphasis on an ‘African agenda’, strengthening of the African Union, the political and economic integration on the continent and governance of the AU. South Africa would continue to support the Pan-African Parliament, the implementation of NEPAD and the Southern African Development Community (SADC). DFA would focus on speeding up the regional integration process. It would also deal with post-conflict reconstruction in a number of countries. Its temporary membership of the United Nations Security Council would support its efforts. It would focus on the strengthening of bilateral relations with Angola, Zimbabwe, Guinea Conakry, Nigeria and Lesotho. The priorities for South-South cooperation, North-South cooperation and Asia were outlined. It would try to participate in the activities of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) so that South Africa could later make an informed decision about whether it wanted to join the OECD. South Africa’s participation in the global system of governance was fully outlined.

DFA had improved its spending to 98.2% of the budget. Full details of audited and unaudited expenditure were set out. The budget requested and allocated for each of the programmes was detailed. A baseline of R3.8 billion was awarded. Full details were provided of its staffing profile, cadet programme, training programmes and challenges.

Members raised issues of the status of Lesotho, support to the Pan African Parliament, properties held, and the state of repair of some of those properties, the vacancies and the principles in staff recruitment, the benefits of participation on the Security Council and the fact that the South African public was largely unaware of the work being done. Further questions related to the difference in the amounts requested and awarded from the Treasury, whether the plans for diplomatic missions were achievable, and the lack of focus on NEPAD. Further questions that could not be addressed due to shortage of time related to Senegal’s position in NEPAD, the views on regional integration, cooperation with the Department of Home Affairs, the perception of South Africa, particularly in relation to crime, funding of an aircraft, and issues in Zimbabwe and Sudan.

MINUTES
Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) Strategic Plan 2007/08 Briefing
Dr Ayanda Ntsaluba, Director General, DFA noted that the work of the Department remained centered on the Strategic Framework tabled for 2006-2009, save that it was now in the process of finalizing a service delivery improvement plan which would be added into the final strategic plan. He noted the ‘African agenda’ and said that as part of the strengthening of the African Union (AU) and its organs, the Department and other countries were looking at the pace and content of the process of political and economic integration on the continent. In this regard a summit would be hosted by the South African Foreign Minister from 7 to 11 May in Durban. Governance and capacity of the AU would be strengthened. It would continue to support the Pan-African Parliament, would host the Africa Diaspora Conference and Summit in 2007/08 and would facilitate implementation of the AU Gender Declaration. IT would also monitor migration issues. It would continue to support the implementation of NEPAD and the Southern African Development Community (SADC). Another major focus for the DFA would be speeding up the regional integration process. DFA would be dealing with post-conflict reconstruction, with particular focus on The Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), Sudan, Burundi and the Comores. The temporary membership of the United Nations Security Council (UN SC) was seen also as an opportunity to support stabilisation in Western Sahara on the table.

DFA wanted to focus on the strengthening of bilateral relations with Angola, Zimbabwe, Guinea Conakry, Nigeria and Lesotho. Regarding South-South cooperation the work in the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM), the Group of 77 (G77), and with China would be continued. There would also be a concerted effort to ensure that the Africa-Asia Strategic partnership was given momentum. With regards to North-South cooperation there would be three areas of focus. The G8 would give significant attention to African issues, particularly energy security, climate change, intellectual property, investment and Africa. Dr Ntsaluba would in the coming days be hosting his counterpart from the European Union. Thirdly, DFA would try to participate in the activities of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) so that South Africa could later make an informed decision about whether it wanted to join the OECD.

South Africa’s participation in the global system of governance was fully outlined. It would contribute to debates on terrorism and weapons of mass destruction, would engage on the possible resumption of the Doha Round of Trade, continue to support reform processes in the United Nations, continue to engage in the institution-building processes of the newly established Human Rights Council, make contributions to the Middle East peace process, and follow up on the implementation of the outcomes of major conferences. As mentioned before, it would focus on the strengthening of economic diplomacy, and this would promote trade investment and tourism potential and opportunities.

DFA noted that in the last financial year it had improved its spending to 98.2% of the budget. Full details of audited and unaudited expenditure were set out. It had developed four options for 2007/08. The figures requested and approved were set out per programme. The total allocation was R3.8 billion. Issues of recruitment and concerns around vacancies were also dealt with in the presentation. Particular focus was given to the DFA’s cadet programme and the progress that was being made with regards to Diplomatic training. Full tables were given of vacancies, employment equity profiles, the HR programme, the training programme and the challenges, which included improving retention of staff. The asset management plan was to be restructured and improved. The new Head Office building project was described, and the ICT plan was tabled.

Discussion
The Chairperson asked why Lesotho had been omitted from the list of countries that the DFA would be focusing on in the coming year. He asked what developments there were regarding Lesotho’s graduation to a developing country.

Ms Tshelane Mokuena, Chief Director for Southern Africa, DFA, stated that the graduation of a country from the status of a Least Developed Country to a Developing Country was a difficult one. The graduation criteria were determined by the United Nations. With regard to Lesotho a number of issues were raised regarding the graduation criteria. Lesotho should have passed a particular percentage with regards to the mortality rate, life expectancy, levels of education, and Gross Domestic Product (GDP) per capita. It had been found that Lesotho was very far below graduation criteria. Lesotho made a number of presentations to the DFA that proposed ways in which South Africa could assist in the matter of graduation. It presented about sixteen projects, but only two of these were deemed to be linked to the issue of graduation criteria, therefore all the other projects had to be rejected.

Dr S Pheko (PAC) asked if the support that the DG had alluded to regarding the Pan African Parliament (PAP) was monetary support, as he thought this was already accepted. He asked if there was an effort to bring in the African Diaspora as part of the African world, and how was South Africa benefiting from being involved in the World Economic Forum.

Dr Pheko noted that one of the innovations of the AU was to stipulate the issue of the African Diaspora in the constitutive act. There had been problems in translating this noble ideal into something concrete. As part of the ten-year celebration of democracy in 2004, South Africa hosted the Caribbean Diaspora conference.

Dr Ntsaluba replied that he would deal with all the issues together because many of them overlapped. He noted that R18 million was budgeted for PAP to commence the international competition for the design of a new site for the PAP. South Africa did have certain obligations in that it had signed a hosting agreement with the African Union and much of what the DFA provided for the PAP was in terms of that agreement.

Mr M Sibande (ANC) stated that the Chairperson was correct in raising the issue of Lesotho, because there were pressing issues there that had not been dealt with. The same was true for Swaziland. There was a problem in that discussions were only held when something went wrong.

Dr Ntsaluba stated that the danger was in picking and choosing examples for presentation purposes, because Swaziland was very much part of the DFA’s agenda. It had merely been omitted from the presentation because of time constraints and because it was included last year.

Mr Sibande asked if proper auditing had been done regarding the matter of redundant properties.

Mr Mkuseni Apleni, Chief Financial Officer, DFA, stated that the DFA had a complete list of its properties and of how many it thought were redundant. DFA was only given the properties portfolio in 2001. In the past Department of Public Works (DPW) had managed the properties, and DFA, together with DPW, was presently reconciling the assets register.

Mr Sibande asked, in regard to the consolidation of the African agenda; whether problems in Zimbabwe and Sudan had an impact on NEPAD.

Mr Sibande said that the presentation had spoken to the vacancies that had been filled in the Department, but made no mention of those that were still open.

Ms Mathu Nompozolo, Chief Director : Human Resources, DFA, said that there were 521 vacancies in the department. Staff already in the DFA would fill vacancies on missions. The promotion of staff always created vacancies at lower levels. The organisation could only afford to take in a certain number of new people at a particular time. Since February of the current year, 203 positions had been advertised. There were two rounds of recruitment; the first of these took place at the beginning of the year and the other would take place in the second part of the year.

Ms S Camerer (DA) asked whether South Africa’s participation in global governance, and in particular the seat on the Security Council was not a mixed blessing because of the bad publicity that this was generating. She asked if South Africa was being seen as protecting tyrants. She also asked if there was any positive work being done with regard to global governance that the South African public was not hearing about.

Dr Ntsaluba would not like to call the matter of the UNSC a mixed blessing, although he said that this might have been true if DFA was faced with unexpected consequences after having entered into the UN. However, in September of last year there had been a strategy document that the DFA worked on with Ambassadors, which constituted the submission of the International Relations cluster to Cabinet. The approach taken was underlined by two factors. Firstly, it was emphasized that South Africa must walk into and out of that seat, still recognisable as South Africa, and therefore it must not emerge after two years as something different to what it was when it went into the UNSC. Secondly, DFA understood that the UNSC status meant that it was going to face a lot of challenges. There would be significant pressures resulting from the dominance of the five permanent members and the relative weakness of the non-permanent members. Issues of principle had been raised around Myanmar as well as Iran. There were many other issues that had been discussed by the Security Council. There had been discussions about the DRC as well as issues of Ethiopia and Eritrea. South Africa was leading the discussion on East Timor. There were many other things that South Africa was doing which were not going to hit the headlines. Not enough had been done to ensure that the South African public was fully aware of the activities of the DFA. It was not accurate to say that South Africa’s membership of the UNSC had created an impression that it supported dictators. If there was such a view, it would not derive from membership of the UNSC.

Adv Z Madasa (ANC) asked why the amounts that the DFA was getting from National Treasury for their various projects were so far below the requested amounts. He asked if DFA had not made a compelling enough case to the Treasury regarding its needs.

Ms M Njobe also asked how the lessened amounts awarded by National Treasury impacted on the work of the Department.

Dr Ntsaluba replied that the DFA had tried to make as compelling a case as possible to the Treasury. It was very difficult to see how much more compelling a case could be made. DFA was as confused as the Committee about why the funds were not forthcoming. The point was taken that in the documentation the DFA was not explicit enough about the work it was doing in providing political support.

Adv Madasa noted that on the subject of post-conflict reconstruction in the DRC, nothing was said about political support. In a previous presentation, some officials had mentioned political intolerance as being a significant problem in the DRC.

Ms M Njobe (ANC) reiterated the concern surrounding communication of Foreign Affairs activity, to the South African population. She asked when appropriate accommodation would be put up for PAP.

Ms Njobe noted that in terms of diplomatic representation, there were 41 missions out of a possible 53 and DFA has said that it wanted to reach 53 by 2008. She asked if this was a realistic target, particularly in terms of budget constraints.

Dr Ntsaluba said that DFA was hoping to create five or six more missions in the coming year in order try to fulfill the aim of having missions in all 53 African states by 2008, but it was let down by budgetary constraints. Countries that could potentially pose problems in terms of diplomatic representation were Seychelles, SaoTome, Cape Verde and Somalia.

Ms Njobe asked if the DG could give an assessment of South Africa’s performance at the UNSC.

Ms Njobe asked, in regard to staff, if there were people with skills from other countries who wanted to come and work in South Africa, or whether South Africa effectively was training people so that they could go work in other countries.

Dr Ntsaluba stated that in those areas where there was a shortage of skills in South Africa, migration laws were being relaxed in order to allow for those skills to enter the country, which was a positive move. There was however a need to ensure that in dealing with such issues, South Africa did not create problems in other countries.

Mr B Skhosana (IFP) stated that he had read somewhere that Senegal’s President Wade had threatened to pull out of the New Economic Partnership for African Development (NEPAD), which seemed an irony because Senegal had been a proponent of African economic integration as a precursor to the unification of Africa. He asked why President Wade made these statements, and if they were made out of fear for hegemonic tendencies or fear of the loss of economic and political sovereignty.

Ms F Hajaig (ANC) stated that everybody seemed to have a different view of what regional integration was. There needed to be more leadership on these issues. She did not feel that there was enough in the strategic document on NEPAD. It was important for cadets to learn French, but Portuguese was also important.

Dr Ntsaluba said that criticism around NEPAD was noted and the DFA would look at it again in finalizing its strategic plan. Regarding integration, it was clear that some people had not internalized the issue of the harmonization of laws.

Ms Hajaig noted that the house of the Ambassador in Tokyo was in a deplorable state and something needed to be done about this. She also noted that the Ambassador to Syria still did not have a vehicle after two years.

Dr Ntsaluba said that the DFA agreed with the problem of the Tokyo house, and that plans were afoot to correct that situation. The issue of the vehicle for the Ambassador in Syria would be followed up after the meeting as the DG had not been aware of this.

The Chairperson stated that there would not be enough time to deal with all of the questions posed and the DFA must agree with the Committee how these would be dealt with.

The Chairperson added that the cooperation of the DFA and the Department of Home Affairs regarding issues of migration and immigration was of paramount importance. He asked how South Africa’s foreign policy reflected on how the outside world perceived South Africa, particularly on issues of crime.

The Chairperson asked why the DFA had funded an aircraft when it was the work of the Department of Defence to do so.

Finally the Chairperson noted that some MPs had traveled to the United States to attend a UN hearing and did not receive treatment befitting an MP.

The meeting was adjourned.