Committee programme

Meeting report

Adoption of minutes

Mr K Mileham (DA) asked why there were minutes of only six meetings between March 2015 and March 2016. He said that a high proportion of minutes had not been documented. The minutes of at least 21 meetings should have been documented within this period.

The Chairperson stressed that minutes of meetings were imperative for the Committee to fulfil its mandate. He suggested that the Committee secretary compile and distribute outstanding minutes to Members at the Committee’s next sitting. He also proposed that the adoption of minutes be deferred until the outstanding minutes were presented to the Committee.

Adoption of 4th term programme

The Chairperson said that all other programmes scheduled for November 2016 had been ruled out in order to accommodate public hearing programmes.

Mr E Mthethwa (ANC) proposed that for the public hearing programmes scheduled from 1 to 25 November, the entire Committee should visit five of the provinces – the Eastern Cape, Free State, KwaZulu-Natal, Northern Cape and Western Cape -- and then split into two groups to visit the rest of the provinces  -- Gauteng, Mpumalanga, Limpopo, and Northwest.

Mr Mileham signified his concern about the lack of consultation with local communities on the issue of traditional leadership. The communities were directly affected and consequently should be duly engaged on such matters. He stressed that majority of the programmes had been scrapped in November to allow these critical issues to be addressed. He said that section 139 interventions were due for review. He added that the Committee was yet to be briefed on the Department of Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs (COGTA) amendment bills on the Municipal Structures and Municipal Systems Acts.

The Chairperson said that since the Committee performed oversight over five entities, the programmes addressing the critical issues could be slotted into the Committee’s programmes in October. He reiterated that the minutes would be reviewed at the next sitting.

The draft programme was adopted by the Committee.

The meeting was adjourned.