Independent Complaints Directorate: Budget and Strategic Plan; Mandating Procedures of Provinces Bill: Deliberations

Meeting report

Mandating Procedures of Provinces Bill (the Bill) : Further briefing by Department of Provincial and Local Government (DPLG)
Mr Johan Labuschagne, Legal Advisor, Department of Provincial and Local Government, briefed the Committee on the amendments made by the National Assembly to the Mandating Procedures of Provinces Bill, noting that these changes were merely technical and linguistic. The sequence of clauses 5, 6 and 7 had been switched around, to make a more logical progression from negotiating mandates to final to legislative mandates. There was also a change in the definition of “legislative mandate” because the original definition referred to the incorrect sections of the Constitution, which had dealt with bills and not other questions; this had now been corrected. There was furthermore a redefinition of “question” to clarify that this meant any question affecting a province and which required a decision by the NCOP.

The Chairperson noted that this Bill was aimed at creating uniformity with the provinces submission of mandates to the NCOP. Members proposed and seconded the amendments. The Committee was happy with those amendments.

The Chairperson noted that the provinces were to be informed of the changes agreed to in principle, and were expected to send final mandates.

Mr N Mack (ANC; Western Cape) suggested that the Minutes of this meeting be sent to the provincial legislatures as well to inform them about the changes.

Private Security Industry Regulatory Authority (PSIRA)
Mr M Mboda, Acting Director, Private Security Industry Regulatory Authority, said that only the senior management team, and not the Council, of the PSIRA was present. The team present recently took over from the previous Chief Executive Officer, and they were only instructed on 27 May to give the presentation, but it appeared that this information had not been communicated by the previous CEO to most of the Council.

The Chairperson took issue with the fact that no board members were present. He said that this was unacceptable as Board Members were accountable, and that PSIRA would have to return at a later date with the Members of the Board in attendance. He excused Mr Mboda and the team and the presentation was not given.

Independent Complaints Directorate (ICD): Continuation of presentation
The Independent Complaints Directorate (ICD) returned to finish their presentation to the Select Committee as well as take questions on it.

Mr Thomas Tshabalala, Programme Manager for Registration, Investigation and Monitoring of Complaints, ICD, highlighted the restructuring of programmes 2 and 3, which was intended to strengthen the ICD’s investigation of complaints. He reported that the process was not yet finalised due to the financial constraints. He added that the ICD was in negotiations with the National Treasury (NT) and would meet with them in September. He noted that there were still some challenges in relation to the legal lacunas whereby the ICD did not have sufficient powers of enforcements, and this would be addressed, as well as relationships with stakeholders strengthened. He noted that there was not a strong working relationship and there was poor understanding of individual mandates between the ICD, the South African Police Service (SAPS), the Metro Police Services and the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP). The priorities for 2008/9 were rolling out of four of the satellite offices, relocation from the office in Richard’s Bay to Empangeni, and ensuring that the programme was ready for its maiden performance audit.

Mr Elias Valoyi , Programme Manager: Administration, ICD, briefed the Committee on Programme 1, dealing with administration. He referred to the figures and growth in the ICD staff complement. He reported that Gauteng and Kwazulu Natal had the biggest staff complement whilst the Northern Cape and Mpumalanga had the lowest. He reviewed progress on employment equity and gender representation and stated that this had been a challenge. The ten misconduct cases covered a wide range of offences and he highlighted the serious case of an investigator in Kwazulu Natal, who had submitted fraudulent claims for attending crime scenes and court appearances. In regard to the vacancy rate, he reported that the main cause of staff leaving was low salaries and their ability to earn much more in the private sector than in the ICD. There was little room for upward progression in the ICD. Although ICD had a retention strategy in place it was still losing most people at the lower levels due to lack of opportunities for promotion. The challenges were outlined as including the small staff complement of 270, the fact that the Executive Director’s post was vacant for about three years, resulting in no spending on personnel and therefore little stability. Furthermore he noted that ICD employees were overworked, that certain positions should be graded at a higher level, failing which the retention strategy would not work,  and the lack of separation of duties. He concluded by broadly reporting on the performance for 2007/8 and the priorities for 2008/9 (see attached presentation).

Ms Elize Verster, Chief Financial Officer, ICD delivered the ICD’s financial management report. She said that there had been underspending on programme 1, mainly due to staff vacancies and overspending on both Programmes 2 and 3. ICD had used R9 million of the Programme 1 surplus to write off bad debts and redirected the rest to cover the overspending in the other two programmes. At the end of the day, the entire budget had thus been spent. The areas of overspending occurred mostly in relation to travel expenses.

Ms Verster explained that Integrated Management Systems showed the biggest overspending of R2 million due to incurring of annual licence fees for upgrading of software. The provinces that had overspent on their provincial budgets (Free State, Limpopo, Mpumalanga, Northern Cape and North West) had done so mainly due to the setting up of new offices. Ms Verster explained those economic classifications where budget growth and expenditure were high and in particular highlighted the software expense for the required disaster recovery plan. The major increases were then discussed. Advertising costs had risen because of the cost of advertising 50 posts with the post office and nationally. She said that ICD now had a tight grip on spending on communications, and employees were now required to pay back any expenditure incurred for personal use. In regard to entertainment, she noted that the ICD still did not use as much as other entities, but due to the escalation of food prices it was difficult to even offer meals to staff at previous prices. The equipment in the new satellite offices was a major expense. The inventory had doubled as ICD had tabled three reports to Parliament and two Strategic Plans. There was also a major increase in resettlement costs last year. Travel and Subsistence consisted of airline tickets, private vehicle rental, toll gate fees and parking fees, and subsistence consisted of food, beverages and accommodation. The costs of attending lekgotlas, and relocation were also notable costs. She noted that not all investigators qualified for Government Garage cars. All of the 49 debtors on the books of ICD, all were still making repayments.

ICD had endeavoured to improve on the previous year’s qualifications of the auditors. The progress of the audit report was discussed. Ms Verster remarked that ICD had received a qualification in terms of the asset management system. ICD had then approached NT for funding and had received that funding in the current financial year. The Auditor General had previously commented on the leave system, and ICD had tried to make improvements and now had a controlled leave register. In respect of goods and services she said there was a better relationship between internal and external auditors. The requests to the Medium Term Expenditure Committee were reviewed, as well as the resultant allocations.

The Chairperson requested that five critical issues that the ICD wanted to raise with the Minister should be furnished in writing to the Committee before the end of the meeting.

Discussion
Mr Z Ntuli (ANC, Kwazulu Natal) asked why the vacant posts were not filled.

Mr Patrick Mongwe, Acting Director, ICD, responded that despite the submission of proper business plans , the requests for funding were ignored when it came to budget allocation. This baffled the ICD. They had requested that the results of the job evaluation be implemented, but nothing came of it, and no reason was given by the NT.

Mr Ntuli referred to the high death rates of the SAPS officers and their families. He asked if the carrying of firearms was not the main cause of these deaths.

Mr Mongwe replied that ICD had submitted an opinion to police management that these police officers' lives were in danger but that it was not feasible to disarm police officers. The carrying of firearms had good and bad aspects. He referred to the fact that certain police officers in Britain did not carry firearms. He said this worked for that country’s force, but pointed out that it was not experiencing the same levels or types of crime as did South Africa, and he did not believe that disarming police officials would work, as the country and its police service was effectively under siege.

Mr Tshabalala said that if members were involved in a shooting, the firearm would be sent for ballistics testing as a matter of procedure, and as a result the police officer would be without a firearm. SAPS did find themselves in these situations and did confiscate firearms.

Ms N Sihlezana, Programme Manager, ICD, agreed that the possession of firearms was a major factor in the femicide cases.

Mr Ntuli asked what the ICD's research indicated, and whether police could become targets. He asked why there was such violent crime in South Africa, even to the extent of people being killed after having been robbed of their cellphones.

Mr Mongwe responded that he would be preempting the results of research by responding to the violent crime question, as ICD was currently awaiting the results of in-depth research on that topic.

Mr Ntuli suggested, in relation to the ICD's relationship with the police and the community, that the ICD could receive complaints via the office of the MPs in their constituency.

Mr Mack concurred with the suggestion that the ICD should reach out to the constituency offices and added that it should send pamphlets and information to these offices so that the people would know what to do.

Mr Ntuli made the observation that police seemed get a slap on the wrist for misconduct and asked why this was so.

Mr Mongwe agreed that there was inconsistency in the sentencing of police officers. He said the ICD ought to play an important role, but SAPS must follow the ICD's recommendations and must account for sentences imposed. He said the ICD was largely ignored and there was currently no legislation to compel compliance, which led to the ICD being labelled as toothless. He added that the ICD did not have much jurisdiction on the sentencing of criminals.

Mr J Le Roux (DA, Eastern Cape) stated that the ICD was too important to have so few staff and too little money. He said that the numbers of people leaving was very high and asked if it was not time to look deeper into this question.

Mr Mongwe responded that ICD had staff retention policies and exit interviews in place. Twenty of the staff who had left did so purely because of low salaries. Twenty nine had left because of low salaries and little prospect of promotion. ICD had requested finds from the NT. If it did not receive funding it could not do anything. The runaway phenomenon of counter offering was of concern. The ICD did not have the financial capacity to compete with counter offerings.

Mr Mack asked when there would be a satellite office in the Western Cape.
 
Mr Mongwe replied that there would be a satellite office in the Western Cape next year

Mr Mack referred to the investigation of police officers and asked if there were not any cover ups by officials. He asked how many of these cases there had been and what was the ICD's success rate.

Mr Mongwe said that the ICD had seen such cases of official cover-ups, and had managed to bring the perpetrators to book but did not make much public outcry about this.

Dr van Heerden (FF+) asked if there was a contract with the bursary students or an agreement to work for the ICD for a certain time.

Mr Mongwe said there was a contract, requiring a match between time financed and time at work for the ICD – in other words if a person was financed to study for three years, he would have to work for the ICD for three years. If the bursary recipient left the ICD before completing the necessary time, then the repayment of the amount owing was taken from their pension funds.

The Chairperson stated that the ICD would have the support of the Committee who would raise the necessary issues on their behalf.

The Chairperson referred to the employment equity figures and the use of the word “African”. He wanted to know who was an African. 

Mr Mongwe responded that this was a very thorny debate. He noted that the language used was that of affirmative action and BEE polices.

Mr Valoyi responded that the term “African” was based on the template of the New Testament. He said he thought the right word should be black and this change would be made in future ICD reports.

The Chairperson commended the ICD on the good job it had done in improving on the Auditor-General's comments of last year, and added that it was pleasing that they had managed to win an award.

The Chairperson, however, commented that in regard to the retention strategy, the linkages with other departments or the lack of linkages did not make sense to him.

Mr Mongwe responded that job evaluation was the answer to linkages to departments

The Chairperson asked why the ICD had stopped restructuring, asking whether this was linked to lack of funds.

Mr Mongwe responded that the restructuring was aimed at strengthening the investigations. He said that ICD previously had a very basic approach which was not well received by investigators. It had now approached the NT and Parliament to get funding for proper restructuring.

The Chairperson asked why the vacancies in senior positions could not be filled. He commented that the ICD was treated like a “stepchild” and that it was high time that a final decision was made on whether there really was a need for this entity. He thought the ICD needed the Committee’s support.

Mr Mongwe replied that people were not leaving at senior levels. It was at the lower levels that this was happening, as there was no possibility of promotion for these people. This could be solved by implementing job evaluation.

Mr Valoyi added that the Executive Director’s position was vacant. The ICD structure was very flat and suppressed promotions. He said that he did not know why the structure could not be made similar to levels of the other government departments.

The Chairperson asked how ICD had managed to reduce the response time from 30 days to 7 days.

Ms Sihlezana replied that ICD had looked at the business processes and found that 30 days was too much, hence the decision to make a change to 7 days.

The Chairperson said that he was aware of ICD's challenges in terms of funding and staffing and he hoped the politicians would come to their rescue. He remarked that the lack of co-operation from the police was sad.

Mr Mongwe thanked the Committee for the opportunity to meet with it, and the contribution by Members, which encouraged the ICD in its work, which he hoped would be recognised fully for its importance, as it acted as a human rights watch dog over the police, to strengthen democracy.

The meeting was adjourned.