REPORT OF THE PORTFOLIO
COMMITTEE ON ARTS AND CULTURE ON ITS HEARINGS ON THE ANNUAL REPORTS 2006/2007 OF
PUBLIC ENTITIES ON THE
1. Background
All Parliamentary Portfolio Committees’
are required to consider and report on Departmental and Public Entities’ annual
reports after tabling and referral. The purpose for consideration of the annual
reports was to assess the performance of the entities against the targets set
in the previous financial year.
The Committee invited the two entities,
advisory council and the Department of Arts and Culture before it on the 24 and
1. Department of Arts and Culture
2. Business Arts
3. National Archives Advisory Council
4. Pan South African Language Board
2. The Department of Arts and Culture
The Director General (DG) Prof. I
Mosala briefed the Committee through six programmes of the Department. He further mentioned that the Departments
activities are divided into six programmes.
They include the following: Administration; Arts and Culture in Society;
National Language Services; Cultural Development and International
Co-operation; Heritage Promotion; and National Archives, Records, Meta-Information
and Heraldic Services.
The DG provided a financial statement
of the DAC and further explained that they know that surplus is not accepted in
the public sector and they follow the under spending guidelines of the National
Treasury. The main focus of the DAC is
on Coordination that is an Art and Culture Policy Review process which was
initiated in 2005 and will culminate in a National Policy Review Summit in February
2007 to which various Arts and Culture stakeholders will be invited to participate.
He mentioned that the DAC has received
an unqualified audit report although there were matters of emphasis such as
asset management; supply chain management and the validity of non performance
information which currently have measures in place.
The DAC has managed to source out
funding for the Community Arts Centres to be ready to meet the challenges of
2010. The DAC are funding groups that
are performing in all the freedom days around the world leveraging millions of
rands as the results of the international agreements.
2.1 The Chief Financial Officer reported according to
the tables below:
|
Programmes |
Main Appropriation R’000 |
Adjusted Appropriation R’000 |
Actual Amount Spend R’000 |
Over/Under Expenditure R’000 |
|
1.Administration |
51,699 |
71,558 |
71,548 |
10 |
|
2.Arts and Culture Society |
197,944 |
194,894 |
194,716 |
178 |
|
3.National Language Services |
67,757 |
58,870 |
58,549 |
21 |
|
4. Cultural Dev. And International Dev. |
165,995 |
159,843 |
159,763 |
80 |
|
5.Heritage promotion |
526,564 |
548,595 |
536,893 |
11,702 |
|
6.National Archives, Records, Meta-Information and
Heraldic Services |
72,740 |
75,184 |
75,180 |
4 |
|
Total |
1,082,699 |
1,108,944 |
1,096,949 |
11,995 |
The surplus relates to 1, 08% of
actual expenditure against the votes funds for the 2005/2006 financial year. He
further explained that the majority of this under spending is due to ongoing
capital works projects linked to the Public Entities. This is at R10, 493,363.42 excluding the
Khoisan Project.
2.2. Committee
Observations
Based on the presentation made by the
department on 2006/07 annual reports and financial statements ending
·
Despite the
progress reported by the DAC during the financial period under review, the
Committee was concerned with the irregular expenditure of R3,351, 308 due to
lack of proper procurement that were not renewed or went out for tendering on
time.
·
The DAC does not
have the evidence pertaining to monitoring and evaluating of contracts which is
the prerequisite for approval
·
The Committee
has noted that the DAC did not provide the Committee with any legislative
proposal for the past 3-4 years period
·
The DAC does not
prioritize the Community Arts Centres development and not successful in many area
·
The Community
Arts Centres are only based in three provinces although there are nine
provinces
·
Libraries in
rural areas are a problem that the department should consider as a matter of
urgency
·
Little has been
done on the promotion of Indigenous Languages and quoted from the previous
briefing by Lottery Board that the forms are only written in English
3. Business
Arts
Ms N Danby the Chief Executive Officer and Mr. S
Kajee the Financial officer briefed the Committee. The main focus of the briefing was on
responsibility of BASA, the highlights and challenges facing the
institution.
BASA’s mission is to promote and encourage mutually
beneficial and sustainable business-arts partnership that will, over the long
term, benefit the broader community. It
has active Board members that served voluntarily and held three meetings
annually. BASA receives an amount of 4, 3 million from
the Department of Arts and Culture as a grant, with an increment of 6% every
year. The grant is applied towards the
BASA Supporting grant Scheme and BASA Special Projects that is 89,75% of the
2005/6 grant.
Ms Danby mentioned that in addition to the grant they
also received a donation of R150 000.00 from Barloworld, and it funds the monthly costs for the part-time
position of Coordinator of the Barloworld Artworks Mentoring programmes, that run
in association with BASA
BASA has a partnership with the Business Day since
its inception to increase the awareness on Arts and Culture through awards
every year. The level of entries has
grown. They also approach business
people to train Artist within the business context.
The challenges they are faced with the Daily Sun had
agreed to publish anything with Arts and Culture but due to the stigma it has it
becomes difficult to get credible writers to use the opportunity.
3.1 Committee
Observations
·
Members noted
that BASA’s financial statements are
balancing and has done very well in its programmes and activities for the
development of Arts and Culture
·
Its unqualified annual reports indicate the
commitment they have for the Arts and Culture.
·
It was also
noted that the and happy to know the deficit was coming down
4. Annual Report
of the National Archives Advisory Council
Dr Dominic the Chief Director for the National
Archives Council from the DAC briefed the committee that the Advisory Council did
not prepare a report for the session due to problems they encountered. The budget of the Archives is within the DAC
as it is not a public entity. He emphasized
that the issue is with the coordinator who is over stretched and working with
heraldic, they are in a process of restructuring with a hope of solving the
problem.
The representatives of the Council felt that the
Council as the advisory body is not proactively functioning towards advising
the Minister on all policy matters related to Archives. According to them they are supposed to have
three meetings annually all of them were postponed on last minute without a
clear explanation.
4.1
Committee Observations
·
The Committee
observed that the Council and the DAC are not communicating properly as
supposed.
·
The Council
should provide the Committee with a
written correspondence to take the matter forward with the Minister as the
Council account to him
5. Pan
South African Language Board
Mr. E Sambo the Chief Executive Officer briefed the
Committee that as the language board they are faced with many challenges such
as the use of the previously marginalized languages. All African languages have some books but
very few people read them. The Afrikaans
seems to be very protective, with the linguistic human rights they only
received complains from Afrikaans. There
are lexicography units in all nine provinces.
Pansalb further explained that there are challenges
they are faced with such as the production of relevant terminologies in the
African languages in particular. The
question that constantly asked what is the economic value of a qualification in
African language? There is no career path in African language. The CEO explained the programmes the Pansalb
involved with in detail in each province.
Pansalb received a grant of R29, 976 million from the
DAC which covers administrative expenses, staff cost, transfers and subsidies
to various lexicography units and other operating expenses. The CEO explained that the reason for Pansalb
to receive a qualified report was that they have failed to consolidate reports
from other units and the deficit of R1, 614 primarily because of their
expansion, the Board took a decision to have provincial offices therefore it
impacted on their finances.
5.1
Committee Observation
·
There are no
mechanism in place to monitor those units in provinces
·
The emphasis of
matter mentioned by the auditor general were of a serious nature, such as the
non compliance with laws and regulations
·
If there are no
segregation of duties in finance it means everyone can do what ever
·
There are many
problems faced as far as the sign language is concern
·
Pansalb should
make a quarterly plan on reporting to be able to see the problems in advance
this will assist them in providing the Committee with a clean unqualified
report next year
6. Conclusion
The Chairperson acknowledged the
responses from the DG and the delegation. He emphasized that as conducting
oversight and monitoring over the Executive, hearings on annual reports would
be institutionalized. The Committee acknowledged the progress that the
Department entities have made in the financial year under review. However, the
Committee was insisted that the DAC should avoid the matter of emphasis
highlighted by the Auditor General.
The Committee has congratulated those
entities with unqualified report and advised others to improve and work hardly
on emphasis of matters highlighted in their reports for next year.
RECOMENDATION