Socio-Economic Development: Self Assessment Report on Socio-Economic Development in South Africa: adoption

JOINT AD HOC COMMITTEEMITTEE ON SOCIO-ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT
26 January 2006
ADOPTION OF SELF ASSESSMENT REPORT ON SOCIO-ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT IN SOUTH AFRICA

Chairperson: Mr V Smith (ANC)

Documents handed out:
Self assessment report on socio-economic development in South Africa (please email docs@pmg.org.za)

SUMMARY
The Committee considered and adopted its report. The Committee agreed to strengthen the language used in some sections. For instance, the report should make it clear that although South Africa was a middle- income, emerging market there were still huge disparities of wealth. The committee believed that there were numerous strategies that could be used to redress the issue of poverty. The report was adopted with minor technical amendments.

MINUTES
The Committee met to consider and adopt its report on socio-economic development in South Africa.

Ms J Semple (DA) said that the report had a lot of grammatical and spelling errors. She proposed that the Committee deal with them before considering the report in great detail. The Committee agreed that it would make all the necessary corrections when considering the report page by page.

Ms D Robison (DA) said that the report should have a content page and a glossary of terms.

The Chairperson said that Committee should be able to defend the report against anyone and it should therefore make sure that it was comfortable with what was contained therein. The Committee would take full responsibility for the report once it had been adopted.

Ms Semple said that the Committee did not have enough time to engage with different stakeholders. It could have had a broader overview of the issues had there been enough time to consult stakeholders.

Ms Semple said that the report should saying something about the over regulation of the labour market. She thought that some presenters had raised the issue during the hearings conducted by the Committee.

The Chairperson said that the issue should be included if that was what South Africans were saying irrespective of whether political parties agreed with that view.

Mr L Greyling (ID) said that the report should refer to the high degree of inequality.

The Chairperson agreed that there was inequality between the rich and the poor.

Ms Semple said that presenters had indicated that tourism was not being given enough attention, especially in rural areas. Rural areas had great potential for growth.

Mr Greyling cautioned against talking too much about government policy in the report. The report should focus on what was said by presenters. The government would be free to come forward and dispute anything in the report. The presenters had said that South Africa had achieved macro economic stability and had brought the deficit down or possibly too low. Some commentators had said that there was space to increase the deficit. What was disturbing was that unemployment figures were still high despite the economic stability. Certain policies such as tariff liberalisation might have contributed to unemployment. There had been calls for increased expenditure and the question was whether there was capacity to spend.

Ms Semple said that civil society was finding it difficult to access information despite the Promotion of Access to Information Act and the Promotion of Administrative Justice Act. Access to information could be made much easier.

Ms B Diutweling (Parliamentary Researcher) said that the report also dealt with the role of Parliament in relation to budgets. The Constitution empowered Parliament to amend any budget. An Act of Parliament had to be passed in order to amend a budget but so far this had not been done.

The Chairperson said that it was important to mention the role of Parliament. Some commentators were of the view that Parliament was not playing a strong role in relation to budgets.

Ms Semple noted that there were problems in relation to revenue collection, which impacted on service delivery. There was not enough revenue due to a lack of capacity in collecting rates.

Ms Diutweling said that there was a tendency to focus more on corruption in the public sector. It was important to also focus corruption in the private sector. The Committee agreed that there should be a holistic consideration of the problem. In terms of regional economic integration, South African companies were doing well. There was a need to investigate they were abiding by ethical codes of the countries in which they were doing business. There was a concern that trade was skewed towards South Africa. This should be corrected because it was not sustainable.

The Chairperson put the report to the Committee for approval. The Committee adopted the report with amendments.

The meeting was adjourned.