Department Budget: input from Government Communication & Information System, Media Development & Diversity Agency, International

The Government Communication and Information System plus its two subsidiaries, the Media Development and Diversity Agency and the International Marketing Council addressed the Committee on its work. Concerns were raised around the Multi Purpose Community Centres (MPCC) built by the GCIS and the imbizos which they organised. The involvement of the MDDA in community radio stations was discussed as was the brandSouthAfrica campaign run by the IMC.

MINUTES
Government Communication and Information Service (GCIS) submission
The CEO of the Government Communication and Information Service (GCIS), Mr Joel Netshitenzhe, addressed the Committee on the highlights of the GCIS over the last ten years and also the challenges which it faced (see text presentation).

International Marketing Council (IMC) submission
Mr Kheepe Moremi, the Marketing Director of the IMC, spoke on the work that the IMC had done since its recent inception (see text and Powerpoint presentation). He added that the IMC had very limited funds and that international marketing was very expensive for advertising South Africa in traditional ways. They had to find a new ways of advertising and the focus would be on generating curiosity which would hopefully lead people to the web portal to find out more. One of these efforts would be to advertise on London taxis with the slogan "In South Africa we open doors for you." Another plan was to bring a targeted 500 of the top CEOs in the world through direct marketing and also get them to visit the web portal and hopefully the country. There was also a plan to bring the CEOs of key stock exchanges to visit South Africa. Since the IMC had limited funds, the Department of Foreign Affairs offices in other countries had to be used to do leverage on the IMC's behalf.

Media Development and Diversity Agency (MDDA) submission
The MDDA Chairperson, Ms Khanyi Mkonza, briefed the Committee on the MDDA's work and its achievements and challenges (see text and Powerpoint presentation).

Discussion
Chief M Nonkonyana (ANC) questioned how accessible the Multi-Purpose Community Centres (MPCC) were in the rural areas. Since the GCIS planned to expand these centres to all municipalities over the next ten years, he suggested that the traditional councils, which were being built, be used as venues for the MPCCs. He also questioned the IMC on the fraud case that was mentioned in the report. The case involved the financial manager and was being investigated by the Scorpions. He asked what amount was involved, whether an internal audit was done and whether the Asset Forfeiture Unit (AFU) had been approached. He had noticed that there was a loss of R454 000 in the MDDA's budget and asked how this had come about.

Ms Ilva Mackay Langa, the Deputy CEO of the GCIS, said she appreciated the comments made about the MPCCs. Phase 2 of the program aimed at having 284 by the end of the program. An audit had been done of government structures and they had found that there were more than 3000 of them. They were now investigating how these could be changed to a "one stop" government structure. Mr Netshitenzhe added that the 3000 government buildings that had been targeted for MPCCs included traditional councils. He emphasised that the MPCC was a base from which they would reach out into the community.

Mr A Chaytoo, from the MDDA, said that the loss showed in the budget was not related to fraud. This was because the financial year had only begun in April 2004. This was therefore only a technical loss.

Mr Moremi said that the fraud case in the IMC involved an amount of R690 000. An internal audit had been done. He was not aware that the AFU was involved, but it was in the hands of the law enforcement agencies and he assumed that the particular person would first have to be found guilty before other steps could follow. Mr Mabuku, also of the IMC, added that the fraud had taken place in the formation stage of the IMC.

Mr R Pieterse (ANC) commended the GCIS on its excellent resource centre at Parliament. He referred to the increased numbers of visitors to the Government.Online website and asked from where the increase had come. He felt that one MPCC per municipality was not enough especially in big municipalities and suggested that this be expanded. He also asked what the members could do to make the services of the MDDA more accessible to people.

Mr T Trew, of the GCIS, said that it was difficult to identify from where the visitors to the website came as they had different servers. He assumed though that most were from outside government.

Ms Mkonza said that the MDDA wanted to be effective in its funding and did not want the situation where it had too many requests that it could not handle. Members of Parliament could be used to promote the MDDA and also provide information to the agency which might be needed with regard to applications.

Ms M Smuts (DA) referred to the TRC Report which had been part of the GCIS's work. At the time of the release of the report, the phone number given had not worked as the Department of Justice had moved. He asked if there had been any follow up on this. She also said that the imbizos were good but that there was a fine line between legitimate government communication and propaganda. The imbizos were also mentioned in three of the programs in the budget. She asked what the total amount for the imbizos were. She questioned how long the Ten Years of Democracy celebrations would be lasting. She asked the MDDA to explain how the seed funding for community radio stations was used since they had a memorandum of understanding between them and ICASA.

MrTrew said that most of the allocation for the celebrations had been spent as these celebrations had been concentrated on 27 April. The celebrations however were supposed to be for the year and would be done on national holidays. The imbizos were budgeted in every program where it was involved. There was no global figure and they were working towards this kind of transparency. He emphasised that imbizos were about interactive government and tried to ensure implementation.

Mr Netshitenzhe said that the TRC issue had been for a short period, but that this problem of incorrect contact numbers should be examined. Ms Langa agreed that there had been a problem with the telephone number given out at the time of the release of the TRC report. Most of these queries however had been related to late registration that were unable to be entertained. Caution was however taken when contact numbers were given in GCIS material. He said that many of the resources that are produced for the imbizos would have been produced anyway. He stressed that imbizos were not party political, but rather interactive governance.

Ms L Lloyd, from the MMDA, said that ICASA was not giving out seed funding to radio stations without licences. They were however targeting communities where there were no community radio stations. The next round of licensing was scheduled to be in 2007 but there was talk about bringing it forward. The amount of seed funding however was very small.

Ms W Newhoudt-Druchen (ANC) asked the MDDA how they communicated with deaf people since radio could not be used. Referring to the IMC she asked how they advertised South Africa to deaf people, since the advertisement on television did not have subtitles. She also asked the GCIS if the imbizos were accessible to people with disabilities. She questioned what had happened concerning the Presidential press corp. There was no report about this or what they had been writing about.

Mr Netshitenzhe replied that when broadcasts were done, they relied on the broadcasters to do the translations. He said that they did try. At the Worcester imbizo, sign language interpretation had been provided. He acknowledged that there was weakness in this area. Referring to the Presidential Press Corp, he said that it was not functioning at optimum level. The journalists themselves had expressed this. This was not due merely to the regularity of briefings though journalists did want more regular interaction with the President.

Ms Mkonza said that the MDDA had not discussed the issue of advertising its services to the deaf. They had however received applications for two projects that targeted people with disabilities. She acknowledged that the agency needed to be pro-active.

Mr Moremi said that the IMC had no approach in advertising to the deaf. This was an area of weakness. This issue would be taken back and addressed.

The Chair said that the Public Service Commission(PSC) had published a report on MPCCs and had made some recommendations. One of these was that personnel were not available for some of the services offered which showed that there was no integrated plan. They had also pointed out that the physical conditions of some of the centres were not good. He asked whether the GCIS had taken note of these recommendations.

Ms Langa said that there a national sectoral committee that looked at the participation of all government departments. If there was a problem with any department it would be taken through this committee. All Director Generals had been informed about staffing problems at MPCCs. There had been a huge improvement in the way MPCCs had been operating. Quality of buildings was also receiving attention as they worked closely together with the Department of Public Works. Mr Netshitenzhe said that that the PSC's recommendations would be taken into account. The main point in the PSC report however involved the formalising of the MPCCs into government structures. He suggested that maybe legislation was necessary to see that departments provide services in these centres.

Ms M Morutoa (ANC) referred to the big screens used by GCIS and commended their use. Her concern was for young people who had been disadvantaged through apartheid and had been left out of the first economy. She felt that these people needed access to information and had difficulty in doing so. She asked if the GCIS had any plans to give them more information perhaps through telecentres.

Mr Trew replied that one the GCIS's principle objectives was to bridge the two economies. It was a fact that the people who were excluded from the mainstream economy were also excluded from main streams of communication. This would receive much attention in future. Mr Netshitenzhe agreed that there was a need to target the unemployed youth. They had a partnership with DTI through Umsobomvu and its National Youth Fund so that telecentres could be established in the MPCCs

Ms S Vos (IFP) asked if there was any resolution to the problems of housing the parliamentary press corp which seemed to be alienated. She also asked if the GCIS was monitoring the quality of ministerial communications.

Mr Netshitenzhe replied that as far as he knew, the new parliamentary secretary had put on hold the proposal to move the offices of the press corp outside of the Parliament precinct.

Mr M Johnson (ANC) said that he had the impression that government was not making an impact as much as it would like to do as far as its achievements were concerned. He suggested that perhaps the mainstream media was the problem. He asked the GCIS to comment on this. He said that the IMC's message on television was a long one. He felt that there needed to be one word slogan that could be associated with South Africa. He asked the MDDA how they monitored the various programs in which they were involved. He suggested that urban communities, especially the townships, should be targeted as well as the rural ones since radio was used widely there.

Mr Trew replied that problems around capacity needed attention. One of the initiatives was the establishment of the academy of communication brought about by the cooperation of Unilever, the Nelson Mandela - Rhodes Foundation and the Wits postgraduate school of development management. Government communicators were trained here to obtain a certificate. At present the first class of 40 were doing their training. The annual government communicators award was also engendering competition. Mr Netshitenzhe agreed that perhaps not much impact was being made with the youth especially intellectuals. The challenge would be to impact on the mainstream media to impact on them.

Ms Lloyd said that the MDDA had taken guidance from other grant makers as far as monitoring was concerned. Contracts were drawn up which spelt out that money would not be given in a lump sum but in quarterly installments which was dependent on the recipients giving a management and financial report. Site visits and spot checks had also been done. She added that they were aware of the urban poor and had projects in some of these areas. They were trying to do research with the Department of Communication to determine areas where there was no public broadcaster. These would be the priority areas.

Mr Moremi said that he agreed that there needed to be one thought which was associated with South Africa. This thought had been developed and the challenge was to imbed this in the hearts and feelings of South Africans. The IMC was the catalyst to do this. They did not have the funds though so it was important for every South African to be a walking billboard.

An ANC member said that he was concerned that the opposition was seeing interactive government as propaganda and that when government reacted to negative reports it was seen as a threat to media freedom and democracy. He felt that this was wrong and that the interactive method was very important. He asked what kind of capacity the GCIS had at MPCCs to communicate within municipalities. Related to this, was the quality of the news at community radio stations and the extent to which GCIS used this to communicate government's activities. He also suggested GCIS consider having local councilors or other personnel of the MPCCs to help translate some of the messages that are transmitted via big screens since most times this is in English. He welcomed the fact that the MDDA was establishing an advertising agency with the national community radio forum, but asked that there be mechanisms to ensure that the resources filter down to the radio stations. He encouraged the IMC to use the South African citizenry to take up the positive message of the country.

Ms Mkonza commented that the advertising agency was important in developing skills since many community radio stations depended on advertising for their sustainability.

Ms Langa stated that there had been various initiatives by GCIS to interact with local governments. These had taken place in the Eastern Cape, Western Cape and the Free State. Personnel was a problem but they would be working through their regional offices. Mr Trew added that they relied on the broadcasters when big screens were used but that they could investigate whether it would be possible to use interpretation. Mr Netshitenzhe added that with the State of the Nation address, there were communication officers of the GCIS a or MECs at big screens to translate and interact with people. This can be improved though.

Mr S Kholwane (ANC) said he was encouraged by the fact that the MDDA was embarking on roadshows, but felt that this should be speeded up. He expressed his appreciation to the GCIS for the ten year celebrations. He felt it was money well spent. He felt though that lots of history in South Africa was not being recorded and wanted to know what GCIS role was in this. The IMC had indicated that they hoped to have reached 50% of the population, by the following year, with brandSouthAfrica. He wanted to know how far they were at present.

Mr Netshitenzhe replied that all major events were recorded. These products were available at their resource centres and had also been shown at various festivals. He did feel that distribution needed to improve.

Mr Moremi said that they had reached 80% of the population with the message. The challenge however was to change attitudes. This had not happened yet. This would be a long process, but some movement had begun.

Ms N Mokoto (ANC) asked what the IMC's links were with the Proudly South African campaign and with provincial initiatives to promote the various provinces. She also asked how many jobs, indirect and direct, had been created since the start of the campaign and whether there were any plans to take the campaign to the people as had been done with the imbizos so that more impact could be done. She asked the MDDA what it could do about the lack of government content on radio programmes - which might be linked to a lack of skills in the media sector.

Ms Mkonza replied that the issue of skills in community media was very important to the MDDA and sought constantly to address this. They were using the MAPP SETA (Sectoral Education and Training Authority) to address this shortage of skills. This was difficult at times as most community radio stations used volunteers. The MDDA however could not influence the content of programs as the Act did not empower them to do this. Ms Lloyd added the community sector was a training ground for many people to go into other sectors such as public and commercial media.

Mr Moremi said that the job that the IMC was doing was a big one and one that had never been done before. Everywhere else this kind of branding was done, it was done by a DTI or South African Tourism equivalent. In this case it was different as everything was in one package. This was therefore breaking new ground and they were still learning as they went along. He felt that this should be documented. He said that they could not claim to have created jobs yet. This was because it was a derived process. He acknowledged that there were not enough links with others, but that progress was being made. They would like to work more with Proudly South Africa.

The Chair referred to the audio and visual materials produced by the GCIS and asked if it were not possible to distribute them more widely such as in commercial outlets.

Mr Netshitenzhe said that he did not agree that their products should be sold at commercial outlets.

The meeting was adjourned.