1st Term Committee Programme; Committee Reports

Meeting report

Ms J Edwards (DA) asked whether the Committee is going to do something about North West going ahead with the auctioning of animals although it was told by the Committee to halt that process.

The Chairperson said it is part of their programme and perhaps they should deal with it there.

Consideration and adoption of the First Term Committee Programme
Ms Edwards said they should be given a draft idea what they were going to do in their oversight.

The Chairperson said obviously, the support staff will prepare background notes for their oversight.

Mr D Ross (DA) said, on the North-West donation, he was approached by experts who disagreed with the information given to the Committee in this regard. The Committee must consider time to deal with this issue. The oversight visit to Sasol must have background information on this matter.

The Chairperson said there will be preparation for the oversight visit to Sasol and what necessitates that visit. On the issue of the donation, the Committee has not completed its work in the North-West province.

The programme was adopted with amendments.

Consideration and adoption of Committee Reports

Report of the Committee on Attendance 7th People and Parks Conference
The report was adopted.

Report of the Committee on Anti-Rhino Poaching Colloquium
The Committee adopted the report.

Adoption of Outstanding Minutes
After going through the minutes page by page the Committee adopted without amendments the following sets of outstanding minutes:

• 11 October 2016
• 14 October 2016
• 18 October 2016
• 25 October 2016
• 28 October 2016
• 08 November 2016
• 29 November 2016
• 24 January 2017
• 31 January 201
• 14 February 2017

Matters Arising from minutes
The Chairperson said issues raised by Members included donations and working on fire projects.

Mr T Hadebe (DA) asked if the Department and the Office of the Auditor General (AG) have sorted the issue of the Modified Care Standards. Also, the Committee wanted to know why the AG’s office changed the SA National Biodiversity Institute audit findings without any justification. This was one of the recommendations of the Portfolio Committee because they realised that the findings were changed when they presented to the Committee. Should the Committee discuss this issue now since the Department and the AG’s office is not present in this meeting?

The Chairperson said the issue of SAINB is part of the programme of the Committee, and were supposed to meet the AG as per that resolution.

On the issue of Modified Care Standards, they were awaiting both the Department and the AG’s office resolutions on the matter, and once they concluded all their interpretations they will come back to the Committee to say what the new mode of operation will be.

The issue of working on fire projects, it was good that it was picked up by Members because they had been hard at work with the fires in Cape Town. So, even if the Committee did not go before they can still go after and get an account of what has happened, how many lives were lost, what were the challenges and so forth. And that should remain in the programme.

The Chairperson said the real issue they may want to look at now is the donation one.

Ms Edwards said they were informed that the North West Provincial Department had sent out invitations inviting people to an auction on 1 March 2017. The Committee must take a resolution on this matter because in the Minutes of 29 November 2016, the Committee’s resolution was that the MEC should hold the process of donating the outstanding animals until the Committee has reacquainted itself with the process. Does the North West Provincial Department disrespect this Portfolio Committee that much for it not to adhere to this Committee’s resolution?

Mr D Ross (DA) said Ms Edwards point was very valid, it was a serious matter. And also under the resolutions of the Committee they insisted that the rhino report should be submitted to the Committee, but did not remember seeing that report. So, it seems the provincial department did not take the Committee seriously.

Mr Hadebe was not sure whether any communication was sent to the Chairperson. According to the MEC, she was going to compile a report regarding this matter and send it to the Chairperson of the Portfolio Committee.

The Acting Chairperson was not sure how to answer this matter, but as a Committee they should make their own conclusions, which were not finalised, and get back to the provincial department as to how this issue of donation should be resolved. The Committee did express themselves with regard to the glaring issues that were problematic in terms of the policy, and the provincial department accepted that the policy is not as progressive as they wanted the Portfolio Committee to believe. Therefore, as a Committee they should look on issues of transformation because they still had to conclude and get back to the provincial department to say it must rectify all those things, especially the issue of those donations that were made.

Secondly, this is a concurrent kind of function, the national developed policy, but also the provincial level has a share or confidence to handle certain things, hence it has that policy. As a Committee, they were not to really take over the provincial government’s functions, and this was what made the Minister for some time not able to get there and direct or instruct, because this is a constitutional predicament, both spheres of government on how to do certain things. But because the Committee oversees policy implementation at national level, which they had said no because it would give them a problem in terms of the way it was done. There was no policy that directed all of them (national) what to do, to have a standardised manner of handling it.

Thirdly, he had an indication from the Chairperson that the Portfolio Committee was invited to the auction by the provincial department, reaching to the Committee to come to the auction, which showed some level of transparency in the process.

The Committee should ask themselves what the difference is between a donation and an auction, because they are not the same thing. Depending on what people want to do in an auction whether they had pre-determined outcomes or fixed certain things beforehand, which is something else. But all in all, the provincial department wants the Committee to be party to that auction process.

Mr Ross said the Acting Chairperson had done pretty well in summarising this issue. But two issues were involved. One is historical, which is that they had not finished the investigation of the donation, and the big difference between a donation and an auction. On the issue of an auction there is no problem going forward because the provincial department is going to auction surplus animals they might have in their reserves. The provincial department should not use this auction to cover the problems of the past. The Committee also should not take its eye off the donation because that has not been finalised yet.

Mr Hadebe said the auction will be based on the animal species the provincial department has in its parks. But it does not take away the fact that the department is the custodian of the environment as well as wildlife. So; it does not give the department the free fall to do as it pleases. It is given the responsibility to look after the wildlife and the environment. But the Committee must find out if the department is auctioning these animals as excess species it has in the parks, while the Committee is still pursuing the issue. Now that the Chairperson is not around the Committee should not discuss or pre-empt the issue because when the Chairperson comes back he may set a different angle in terms of how they should deal with this issue.

The Acting Chairperson said they had exhausted the matter. It was agreed to meet with the provincial department to get more clarity on the issue of the donation before finalising the report, and to get a balanced view on all these matters in order to make an informed decision.

The Chairperson thanked all Members of the Committee for attending the meeting.  

The meeting adjourned.