Minutes: Group 2

Standing Committee on Public Accounts (SCOPA)

Meeting no 01

Tuesday, 08 February 2005, in E337, Third floor, New Wing

  1. Present:
    1. African National Congress
    2. Mr V Smith

      Ms L Mashiane

       

    3. Democratic Alliance
    4. Mr E Trent

    5. New National Party
    6. Mr F Beukman

    7. Independent Democrats
    8.  

       

    9. United Christian Democratic Party

    Mr B E Pule

  2. Apology
  3. Ms L Mabe

    Mr R Ndou

    Mr C Wang

  4. Officials in Attendance:

Mr C Botes: Senior Manager: Office of the Auditor-General

Ms Z Msutu: Senior Administrator: Office of the Auditor-General

Mr G Dixon: Committee Secretary, Parliament

 

Apologies:

Agenda:

The agenda as tabled below was adopted with the addition of a discussion and recommendation on the proposed African Study Tour:

    1. Status Report
    1. Arts and Culture
    2. ArtsCape
    3. National Museum – Bloemfontein
    4. National Zoological Gardens of SA
    5. Nelson Mandela Museum
    6. South African Heritage Resources agency
    7. Council on Higher Education
    8. National Student Financial Aid Scheme
    9. Media Development and Diversity Agency
    10. National Youth Commission
    11. Sport and Recreation South Africa
    1. Tabling of MDB resolution
    2. Tabling of Correctional Services Resolution
    3. Tabling Modderbee Site Visit Report
    4. Tabling of Weekly Programme
  1. STATUS REPORT

The Office of the Auditor-General (OAG) tabled the Status Report for 2003 – 2004 Annual Reports. There remain 09 Votes and 52 subsidiary reports that still need categorizing.

Mr Pule agreed to be assigned the following reports:

(See Annexure B for an update of Annual Reports allocated to members)

A Group 2 work programme scheduling days for categorizing the reports was tabled and agreed to. (See Annexure C for updated schedule.)

A list of Category B reports was tabled to remind members to supply the questions on the reports to the Secretariat for submission to the Departments. The Group agreed that the Secretariat would inform each member responsible for the reports in writing to supply the information needed. It was agreed that questions from 2002/03 and 2003/04 Annual Reports would be combined where necessary.

The Group agreed that in principle it would not change to allocating a report to two members, as it was not a feasible approach considering the workload of SCOPA. Each member would continue with the reports already allocated to him/her but was not precluded from interacting on the reports allocated to another member. The member who has been allocated the reports will still act as lead representative for reporting to the Group. Members agreed that the Group would decide on the way forward in dealing with Annual Reports where a member is absent for a protracted period.

  1. RESOLUTIONS

The Municipal Demarcation Board, Department of Correctional Services and Moderbee Site Visit report was tabled.

The Group agreed on an approach in dealing with resolutions:

Mr Smith agrees with the recommendation noted on page 3 of the Correctional Services report and adds an amendment to the Modderbee Site Visit Report on page 3 and subsequent pages for "plus/minus" to be replaced by "approximately".

  1. PROGRAMME
  2. Hearing priorities: The Group agrees with the work done by the Auditor-General on the Hearing Priorities.

    The Programme proposed a number of Friday hearings to catch up with the Parliament and Health hearings that were postponed. The Group discussed the idea of having Tuesdays and Wednesdays for hearings with an hour of group meetings beforehand. Briefings would take place the day before the Hearing. The principle is that we would have less administration and more hearing time. Members would have to do their homework on a report and formulate their own questions for the hearings. The perception is that the committee relies too much on the OAG to supply its needs in formulating questions for the hearing.

    Members agreed that as far as possible SCOPA would try not to have hearings on a Friday. Any hearings that do occur on a Friday must not be longer than lunch.

    It was suggested that hearings could be clustered with their subsidiaries to be more efficient. The practicalities of making it work in practice could be limiting to the departments concerned and it must be thoroughly investigated but where possible a subsidiary and department would attend together.

    It may even be better for hearings to be shorter as they tend to be more focused and to the point. The point was raised that Departments tend to waste the committees time by not getting to the point. The Chair was encouraged to exercise discipline with regard to this issue.

    The only foreseeable problem at this stage might be the availability of venues for Tuesdays. The recommendations will be submitted to plenary for discussion.

  3. SITE VISIT PRIORITIES

The purpose of site visits is a fact-finding mission for hearings. Part of prioritizing it is to link it to the hearings scheduled for the period.

Fridays are not feasible due to the need for members to attend to Constituency work and the problem of flight availability on Fridays. A constituency period was rejected as an option due to the importance of dealing with party commitments during this period.

  1. AFRICAN STUDY TOUR
  2. The Group proposes that the African Study Tour be linked to the SADCOPAC conference due to be held in Tanzania. The idea is for the delegation attending the SADCOPAC to link up with the African Study Tour delegation in Tanzania and together visit the relevant places of interest in Tanzania before the Study Tour completes its visits.

    The Group was informed that the delegation from South Africa attending the Australian Study Tour held 06 – 09 February 2005 comprised approximately 70% of the conference. The delegation from South Africa was composed of the Provincial Parliaments and SCOPA. It is an untenable situation that so many delegates from one country attend a conference where a multi-party, multi-provincial delegation would have been preferable to limit costs. APAC will be writing to the legislatures and the Speaker of the National Assembly to discuss co-ordination of overseas trips as a country in future.

  3. PLENARY AGENDA
  4. The Group looked at the agenda for plenary and agreed to work through the documents for Wednesday, 09 February 2005.

    The Group was informed that the House Chairperson of the National Assembly requested all committees to submit a reworked budget to comply with the R23 Million received. Committees collectively requested approximately R95.8 Million and collectively would have to reduce the requested budget by approximately R73 Million. (See Annexure D)

    Mr Trent raised the concern that the Executive government determines the budget allocation for Parliament and that this effectively limits the work of Parliament in terms of oversight. The situation places the work of oversight at the mercy of the Executive, which is contrary to the spirit of the doctrine of Separation of Powers. It was agreed that this is a problem and that the issue would be raised in a different forum for further discussion.

    The Budget process on the plenary agenda refers to the planning and setting of priorities for SCOPA. Members seek to have more input into this process and require an update on the procedure to deal with this in future.

    Mr Trent raised the Global Organisation of Parliamentarians Against Corruption (GOPAC) initiative chaired by Mr John Williams, Chairperson for the Standing Committee on Public Accounts of the House of Commons of the federal Parliament of Canada for further input by members interested in joining. The outline of the initiative is to interest members in upholding the fight against corruption. Enough Parliamentarians will eventually form a chapter of GOPAC with goals and initiatives such as passing legislation to fight corruption in government. The meeting agreed that this matter could be raised for the attention of members at a plenary level.

  5. ALTERNATIVE HEARING DATE FOR HEALTH AND PARLIAMENT

The amendment of Tuesday, 22 February 2005 to the motivation for the hearing on the Department of Health was adopted for tabling in the plenary of SCOPA.

The alternative date for Parliament, Tuesday, 01 March 2005 was accepted.

Meeting adjourned: 11:04

 



Convener: Ms L Mabe Date: