Socio-Economic Development: Research Reports: Minutes of Proceedings
MINUTES OF PROCEEDINGS OF JOINT AD-HOC COMMITTEE ON SOCIO-ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT
Please note: These minutes were taken by the Committee Clerk in Parliament
Wednesday, 07 December 2005 (10h30)
Venue: Birchwood Hotel, Boksburg, Johannesburg
PRESENT:
AFRICAN NATIONAL CONGRESS
Mohlaloga, Mr M R (Chairperson)
Njikelana, Mr S J
Mazibuko, Ms N F
DEMOCRATIC ALLIANCE
Kalyan, Ms S V
INKATHA FREEDOM PARTY
Zulu, Prince N E
AFRICAN CHRISTIAN DEMOCRATIC PARTY
Dudley, Ms C
The following staff members were in attendance:
Manjezi, Ms N C, Committee Administrator; and
Mvulane, Mr Z A Committee Researcher.
The Chairperson welcomed everybody and proceeded to consider the following item of the agenda:
1. Overview of the questionnaire and draft responses to the questionnaire
The Chairperson commended the level of commitment of Members of the Committee to proceed to work as mandated by Parliament and meeting the target dates.
He further requested that all Members must send their responses of their allocated objectives to the Researcher.
The Chairperson informed the Members that by next week MPs would receive the report from the Minister of Public Service and Administration, which generally tries to create a synergy between the Parliamentary and the country processes.
2. Presentation by Members:
2.1 Prince N E Zulu (Objective 5): Progress towards gender equality,
particularly equal access to education for girls at all levels.
The Honourable Prince N E Zulu presented the discussion paper on Objective 5 of the APRM Questionnaire (Gender Equality). The Committee accepted the paper and made suggestions on other various issues to be covered.
The Hon. Prince N E |Zulu also indicated that more work still to be done on the role of women in the household and implication of such a role in terms of ensuring gender quality.
Ms N F Mazibuko was very concerned on the gender budgets and the issue of classification and breakdown according to races. She indicated that the Committee must take cognisance of the issues of SADC declarations and also highlighting the large number of women deputising as Ministers, Chief Whips, Speakers and Deputy Speakers particularly in the provinces.
The Chairperson also proposed that the researcher must look at reports on Gender Commission and Office of Status of Women offices in all provinces as well as the reports of Joint Committee on Status of Women and Women’s Caucus.
Ms Kalyan also proposed that this discussion paper must include paradigm shift of men acknowledging that women hold top positions.
- Mr S J Njikelana – (Objective 3): Strengthening mechanisms and outputs in
- Ms S V Kalyan – (Objective 1): Promoting self-reliance and build capacity for self-sustaining development.
- Ms N F Mazibuko – (Objective 2): Accelerating socio economic objectives to achieve sustainable development and poverty alleviation.
- Ms C Dudley (Objective 6) : Encouraging broad participation in
- Ms L Mashiane: (Objective 4): Ensuring affordable access to water, energy,
key social development areas including education for all, combating
HIV/AIDS and other communicable diseases.
Mr S J Njikelana presented a progress report on Objective 2 of the APRM Questionnaire. He indicated that there is work and progress made in working on his discussion paper. He also informed the Committee that he needed to know the key areas of development and each aspect has been addressed but not in full by the Researcher. He indicated that is concern about the workload of the Researcher and the predicament it will have in meeting all the research needs of the seven Members of the Committee.
Ms S V Kalyan presented a report on Objective 1 of the APRM Questionnaire. She indicated that this objective is overlapping with other objectives. She is encountering problems with areas of budget. Because of the technicalities of the objective, it is difficult for her to proceed with the work. She needs support of a researcher.
The Chairperson proposed that Ms Kalyan must look at areas of IDPs and see who participate in those areas. He further suggested that it would be important to look at Chapter 9 institutions, 10 Year Review report and also the State of the Nation’s Address.
The Researcher indicated that he would assist Ms Kalyan with a document to shape the whole areas of key indicators.
Ms N F Mazibuko presented on Objective 2 of the APRM Questionnaire. She informed the Committee that she managed to answer all the questions and that there are few issues that she did not understand like social indicators. She also indicated that some work like WSSD indicators is not easy to access the information.
She is of the view that she must have assistance to share ideas if a member is stuck and to edit the work already done.
The Chairperson proposed that there is a need to ascertain which objectives require extensive work to be done or a researcher be attached to each MP. This needs to be done in response to the questionnaire, as the process needs to assist MPs on the plan of action to take forward.
The Committee unanimously agreed that each MP be allocated a research support in order to achieve its work. Mr S J Njikelana was also of the view that W.Cape tertiary institutions can be utilised to assist MPs to ensure that substantive issues are clarified.
The Chairperson also added that the Committee must look at the possibility of reinforcing an additional two or more researchers and see how they can be allocated to each Member. The Chairperson would speed up the process with the Head of Research Unit, Dr L Gabriel.
Ms C Dudley proposed that there is a need to get professional support/academics who have been working on the areas in the past ten years to assist MPs to respond to the questionnaire.
development by all the stakeholders at all levels.
Ms C Dudley presented on Objective 6 of the APRM Questionnaire. She indicated that there is still work to be done to respond to the questionnaire. Additional research support is needed to complete the work.
finance, markets, ICT to all citizens especially the poor.
Ms Mashiane was not present in this meeting to present her discussion paper.
3. Other issues discussed:
3.1 Volunteer to attend the APRM Conference from 8 – 11 December 2005
Due to prior work commitments of the Chairperson to attend conference, the Committee nominated Mr S J Njikelana to attend on his behalf.
3.2 Reports from Committees:
The Committee agreed that the Researcher must look at the reports of various committees relevant to the work of the Committee and its sectors.
3.3 Researcher to attend meeting on 15 December 2005:
The Committee agreed that all researchers who worked on discussion documents/papers must attend the meeting on 15 December 2005 to lead the MPs on all discussion papers. The Researcher, Mr Mvulane, agreed to facilitate the process in making sure that all attend the meeting.
3.4 Establishment of focus groups:
The Chairperson proposed that the Committee must look at the possibility of getting 3 universities to be lead by two lecturers and senior students to establish the focus groups to look at the report and to see whether it can stand its intellectual scrutiny. He further proposed that the Committee should look on Commission on Gender Equality and Business Unity South Africa reports. The Committee agreed to these proposals.
3.5 Availability of documents at the Library:
The Committee view the issue of documents generated by Committee as very important and that they must all be made available at the Parliament Library for information.
The meeting adjourned at 13h00 and the date of the next meeting is 15 December 2005 at 09h00.
Adopted by the Committee: 10 January 2006
Signature by the Chairperson:…………………………….
Date:………………………