Report of the Portfolio Committee on Environmental Affairs and Tourism
on Joint Strategic Planning Workshop with the Department of Environmental
Affairs and Tourism, Public Entities and Select Committee on Land and
Environmental Affairs, dated 30 May 2006:
The Portfolio
Committee on Environmental Affairs and Tourism having participated in a Joint
Strategic Planning Workshop with Department of Environmental Affairs and
Tourism and its public entities as well with the Select Committee on Land and
Environmental Affairs, reports as follows:
1.
Legislative background
The public
service regulations give responsibility for strategic planning to the executive
authority of the Department concerned. The regulations issued in terms of
Public Finance Management Act 1999 provide for further requirements with
respect to strategic plans.
They
require strategic plans to cover the Medium Term Expenditure Framework (MTEF)
period to which they relate. These plans are supposed to be submitted to the
Parliament or the relevant legislature at least seven days before the
discussion of the budget vote of the Department.
2.
Joint Strategic Planning Workshop
The
Portfolio Committee on Environmental Affairs and Tourism and the Select
Committee on Land and Environmental Affairs held a join strategic workshop on
13-14 March 2006 at Lord Charles Hotel in Somerset West (Western Cape) with the
Department of Environmental Affairs and Tourism and Public Entities (i.e. South
African Weather Services, South African Tourism, Grading Council, Tourism
Hospitality Sport Education, South African National Parks, Greater ST Lucia
Wetland Park and South African Botanical Institute).
The main
objective of the workshop was to present to both Members of the Portfolio and
Select Committees an overview of the Departmental and the Public Entities’ work
as per their strategic plans, with specific focus on main deliverables in each
programme for 2006/07.
3.
Ministerial opening
In his
opening address, the Minister of the Department of the Environmental Affairs
and Tourism, Hon, Marthinus van Schalkwyk
tabled five strategic priorities of the Department in terms of the resource
allocation and overall coordination. These included:
(a)
The finalisation of new
environmental impact assessment regulations and capacities;
(b)
Keeping climate change and
national responses at the centre of the domestic and international agenda;
(c)
Strengthening compliance and
enforcement capacity; unlocking the potential of the Tran- frontier
conservation areas; and
(d)
Building on the major growth
achievements in the tourism sector, especially in preparation for the 2010
soccer world cup.
4.
Presentation on the Strategic Plans of the Department and Public
Entities
Through the Co- Chairing of Mr L Zita,
Chairperson of the Portfolio Committee of Environmental Affairs and Tourism
and, Rev P Moatshe, Chairperson of the Select
Committee of Land and Environmental Affairs, the Director-General and Deputy
Director- Generals of the Department and Chief Executive Officers of Public
Entities made presentations on 2006/07 strategic plans. The presentations focused on the vision,
mission, achievements, challenges, commitments and 2006/-07 strategic priorities.
As the achievements of the Department and the Public
Entities were reported in their 2005 Annual Reports and the Portfolio Committee
presented its report to Parliament on the 15 November 2005, this report will
only cover the challenges and 2006/07 strategic priorities presented to Members
of Committees during the workshop.
The main objective of capturing only the challenges
and 2006/07 strategic priorities, is to provide Members of the Portfolio and
Select Committees with a monitoring and oversight tool that could ensure
Departmental and public entities accountability in terms of the 2006 State of
the Nation Address and programmes allocations in Budget Vote 27 as contained in
2006 Estimates of National Expenditure.
4.1.
Overview of strategic priorities of the Department
This section provides an overview of the 2006/07
strategic priorities of the six programmes of the Department of Environmental
Affairs and Tourism. The main focus of the overview is on programmes such as
administration and support presented by the Director General and environmental
quality and protection, marine and coastal management, tourism, biodiversity
and conservation presented respectively by Deputy Director Generals.
4.1.1.
Administration & Support Programme
The
Director General, Ms P Yako presented the strategic
plan of the administration programme. The presentation focused on the vision,
mission, 2005 achievements, challenges as well as the 2006/07 strategic
priorities. According to the Director General, the 2006/07 strategic priorities
of the administration programme will include:
q
Implementation of black economic
empowerment scorecard;
q
Investment in skills development;
q
Development of staff retention
strategy and stakeholder engagement; and
q
An increase of the representation
of people with disability to at least 2% and women in Small Medium Enterprise (SME) to 26%.
4.1.2.
Environmental Quality & Protection Programme
The Deputy Director General, Ms J Yawitch, presented 2006/07 strategic plans of environmental
quality and protection programme. According to the Deputy Director General, the
following strategic priorities will be pursued in 2006/07:
q
Establishment of comprehensive
programme to support provincial and local government in capacity;
q
Impact evaluation of plastic bag
legislation;
q
Strategic enforcement actions
directed at major polluters or dangerous pollutants;
q
Finalisation of Waste Management
Bill and publication public comment;
q
Finalisation of tyre and asbestos
regulations and ambient air standards;
q
Delegation of landfill permits to
provinces on basis of agreed implementation plan and capacity building support;
q
Permits review of major polluting
industries and long term scenario planning on climate change; and
q
Improvement of air quality
management training for provincial and local government
4.1.3.
Biodiversity & Conservation Programme
The Deputy Director General, Mr F Mketeni, made presented 2006/07 strategic plan of the
biodiversity and conservation programme. According to Deputy Director General,
the 2006/07 strategic priorities of the biodiversity and conservation program
will include:
q
Finalisation of the management
framework for Genetically Modified Organisms (GMO);
q
Development of the biodiversity
framework;
q
Listing ecosystem in terms of
NEMBA;
q
Development of the norms and
standards for the regulation of hunting industry and the management of elephant
in South African;
q
Regulations for threatened,
protected, aliens and invasive species; and
q
Declaration of new National Parks
in
4.1.4 Marine and Coastal Management
Programme
The Deputy
Director General, Dr M Mayekiso presented the 2006/07
strategic plan of the marine and coastal management programme. The presentation
focused on 2004/05 achievement and challenges. In order to address the
compliance, research development, resource management and integrated management
challenges, 2006/07 strategic priorities of Marine Coastal Management
include:
q
Promulgation of coastal management
act;
q
Finalisation of aquaculture
policy;
q
Allocation of shark cage diving
and boat based whale rights;
q
Development of skills development
strategy and research output through collaboration;
q
Filling of new and vacant
positions and Increase number of inspector;
q
Develop financial and procurement
system and cost recovery framework; and
q
Development of recreational permit
system.
4.1.5 Tourism Programme
The Deputy Director General, Dr P Matlou presented the 2006/07 strategic plan of the tourism
programme. The presentation focused 2005 achievements and challenges as well as
the 2006/07 strategic priorities. According to the Deputy Director General, the
2006/07 strategic priorities of the tourism programme will include:
q
Addressing tourism skills demands;
q
Facilitating tourist safety and
security and building a tourism friendly nation;
q
Improving movement of tourist to
and within
q
Supporting local government to
grow the tourism sector in 9 priority areas;
q
Developing and entrenching
accurate research instruments; and
q
Implementing broad based black
economic empowerment.
5.
Strategic priorities of public entities
This section provides an overview of the 2006/07
strategic priorities of the public entities accounting to the Minister of the
Department of Environmental Affairs and Tourism. As indicated in the
introduction of this report, this section will focus only on the 2006/07
strategic priorities presented respectively by the Chief Executive Officers all
public entities.
5.1.
South African Grading Council
The Chief Executive Officer, Dr S Siddo presented the 2006/07 strategic plan of the South
African Grading Council. The presentation focused on 2005 achievements and
challenges as well as the 2006/07 strategic priorities.
According to the Chief Executive Officer, the
2006/07 strategic priorities of the South African Grading Council will include:
q
Working with Department of
Environmental Affairs and Tourism and provinces to monitor government
procurement of graded establishment;
q
Accelerating grading of conference
venues;
q
Finalizing and launching grading
of tourist transport services; and
q
Initiating of development of
grading schemes for golf n ad endorsement of star grading by domestic and
international operators.
5.2.
Tourism Hospitality Sport Education Training Authority
The Chief Executive Officer Dr M Tsotetsi
presented the 2006/07 strategic plans of the Tourism Hospitality Education
Training Authority. The presentation focused on 2005 achievements, challenges
and 2006/07 strategic priorities. According to the Chief Executive Officer, the
2006/07 strategic priorities will focus on:
q
Reconstruction of the board;
q
Submission of new 30
qualifications to South African Qualifications Authority (SAQA);
q
Accreditation of training
providers;
q
Research scarce and critical
skills in the sectors;
q
Conducting skills audit; and
q
Streamline processes and
procedures to ensure rapid deployment of resources.
5.3.
South African National Parks
The Chief Executive Officer, Dr D Mabunda presented the 2006/07 strategic plans of the South
African National Parks. The presentation focused on 2005 achievements and
challenges as well as the 2006/07 strategic priorities. According to the CEO,
the 2006/07 strategic priorities of the South African National Parks will focus
on:
q
Implementation of infrastructure
development programme;
q
Finalization and implementation of
tourism model and brand strategy D;
q
Rolling out park management plan
and reporting on the state of the park;
q
Mapping of cultural resource in
all the parks and Implementation of balance score card; and
q
Development of scientific and
biodiversity research strategy.
5.4.
South African National Botanical Institute
The Chief Executive Officer, Professor B Huntley
presented the 2006/07 strategic plans of the South African National Botanical
Institute. The presentation focused on the 2005 achievements and challenges as
well as the 2006/07 strategic priorities. According to the Chief Executive
Officer, the 2006/07 strategic priorities of the South African Botanical
Gardens will include:
q
Developing network of national
botanical gardens;
q
Ensuring legislative coherence in
relation to genetically modified organism and bio prospecting, threatened
species and ecosystems;
q
Gap analysis of national capacity
in biodiversity;
q
Collection of taxonomy and future
of natural history;
q
Developing biodiversity knowledge
management system; and
q
Conducting research that focuses
on global change and risk assessment, land degradation and adaptation to
climate change, threatened and ecosystem.
5.5.
Greater
The Chief Executive Officer, Mr A Zaloumis presented the 2006/07 strategic plans of the South
African National Botanical Institute. The presentation focused on the 2005
achievements and challenges as well as the 2006/07 strategic priorities.
According to the Chief Executive Officer, the 2006/07 strategic priorities of
the South African Botanical Gardens will include:
q
Implementation of revised
commercial strategy focusing on public access, refurbishment of existing park
facilities and new investment;
q
Support settlement of land claims
and implementation; and
q
Consolidation of uMkhuze, Ozabeni and
6.
Evaluation of the Strategic Planning Workshop
On the 24
March 2006, the Portfolio Committee on Environmental Affairs and Tourism
evaluated the strategic planning workshops in terms of its objectives and
outcomes. The following are the observations made by Members of the Committee
during the meeting:
q
The workshop had provided a good
platform for members and government officials to discuss departmental and
public entities’ past achievements, challenges and 2006/07 strategic
priorities;
q
But due to time constrains the
workshop did not provide adequate time to question the presentations;
q
The presentations focused more on
past achievements and little on what will be done during the 2006/07 financial
periods;
q
As the result the workshop did not
discuss issues related to implementation of international instruments, climate
change and diversification;
q
Furthermore, the workshop did not
discuss challenges related to allocation rights in terms of new fishing
policies;
q
More time and duration should be
given to future workshops and must be held in one of the national parks rather
than in the hotels;
q
The Committee further resolved
that future strategic planning workshops should be held in one of the national
parks and more time should be allocated with more focus on strategic priorities
and less on past achievements that can be captured in annual reports.
7.
Recommendations
In order
to facilitate parliamentary oversight and executive accountability on
Departmental and Public Entities programmes, the Portfolio Committee on
Environmental Affairs and Tourism recommends that:
(a)
The Department and Public Entities
must during the 2006 Second Term of Parliamentary Session come and brief
Members of the Committee on poverty alleviation projects; NEPAD and SADC
Tourism Plan; Greening of the Nation Project; Elephant Management Strategy;
2006 /07 Legislative programmes; Tourism Black Economic Empowerment Scorecard;
Fishing rights policy and breakdown analysis of allocation; Environmental
Impact Assessment; Skills development plans and retentions strategies of all
the public entities and Hunting regulations;
(b)
The Department of Environmental
Affairs and Tourism must during the 2006 third term of parliamentary session
provide training to Committee Members on all the international instruments
passed since 1994 and departmental programmes;
(c)
The Portfolio Committee to undertake oversight
visits to Kruger National Parks and St Lucia Wetland Authority during the 2006
third term of parliamentary session to assess the progress made in respect of
land claims, extended public works programs, infrastructure development,
eco-tourism and black economic empowerment;
(d)
During the 2006 third term of
parliamentary session, the Department of Environmental Affairs and Tourism must
arrange and coordinate workshops with Members of the Committee on Accelerated
Shared Growth Initiative in South Africa (ASGISA), and on Genetically Modified
Organism and National Environmental Management Act;
(e)
With effect from 1 April 2006, the
Department and Public Entities should provide quarterly reports to Members of
the Committee on all progress made with regard to their activities.
(f)
The Department and Public Entities
must ensure that in future the strategic planning workshops focus more on
strategic priorities and less on past achievements that can be captured in
annual reports as per requirements of Public Finance Management Act of
1999.