USAASA/USAF 2019/20 Annual Report & outstanding matters; with Deputy Minister

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Communications and Digital Technologies

09 March 2021
Chairperson: Mr B Maneli (ANC)
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Meeting Summary

Annual Reports 2019/20

The USAASA/USAF interim board took the Committee through its 2019/20 annual report in a virtual meeting, and stated that during the past financial year, the entity had achieved 50% of its targets.

Before the presentation began, Members questioned the persistent absence of the Minister, asserting that she did not seem to attend meetings and when she did, she did not stay for long. There were also issues raised regarding written responses from previous meetings that were still to be received. The Chairperson was asked to take a strong stand on this issue, and to stress the importance of these meetings having a back and forth dialogue.

USAASA was interrogated on the 50% achievement of its performance indicators, as well as the status of the disciplinary processes with the employees under suspension. The entity also came under scrutiny for its award of service delivery contracts, the lack of oversight on the roll out of infrastructure, and the instabilities highlighted in its audit reports

The Committee requested clarity on the status of the interim board, as they had heard from the Minister that USAASA and SITA were going to be repurposed, and now there was an interim board. They also asked for details of the Digital Development and Challenge Fund that was supposed to replace USAASA. The current interim board hoped that this fund could be implemented at the beginning of the 2023/24 financial year.

USAASA was also questioned about the impact of the court judgment on the spectrum auction, and whether it had the capacity to ensure the Broadcasting Digital Migration and analogue switch-off deadline of March 31 2022.

Meeting report

Opening Remarks

The Chairperson said there would be a briefing by the Universal Service and Access Agency of South Africa (USAASA) on its annual report and a response to outstanding issues which Members had raised when they appeared before the Committee to deal with the Auditor-General’s (AG’s) report.

Ms Pinky Kekana, Deputy Minister of Communications and Digital Technologies, submitted an apology on behalf of the Minister, Ms Stella Ndabeni-Abrahams, who was attending a National Coronavirus Command Council (NCCC) meeting.

Ms P Van Damme (DA) asked when the last time the Minister was that she had been present for a meeting, as she tended to join for a short while and then leaves. The Deputy Minister was the one who attended the meetings. She asked the Chairperson to raise this issue?

The Chairperson noted Ms Van Damme’s concern, and said she was sure that the parliamentary liaison officers (PLOs) had heard that their responsibilities included coordinated the Ministers’ diaries.

Mr C Mackenzie (DA) said that a number of entities had been present in the last meeting, and he had posed a number of questions specifically at the South African Post Office (SAPO). The Committee had been assured that they would get the answers in writing, but had not received anything to date. Was there any indication of when they were likely to receive those answers?

The Chairperson said that he would follow up, but commented that there would be an opportunity to engage with those entities that were still to appear before the Committee, like USAASA, the State Information Technology Agency (SITA), and SAPO. However, he would follow up after this meeting

Mr Mackenzie said he appreciated the intervention, but believed that the questions posed to SAPO were so critical that the Committee could not wait until the next term for them to appear, and having looked at the latest programme, this would not happen.

The Chairperson said SAPO had been rescheduled, as they did not want to wait until the next term, and the Committee would be seeing SAPO next week. However, taking forward Mr Mackenzie’s point, it was important to follow up on the responses with those entities not coming before the Committee.

Deputy Minister Kekana said the important issue around USAASA was stability around governance and executive. She would not be able to respond to what the Committee wanted her to respond to, because the previous engagements had been made with the Minister. She urged the Committee to at least put some issues aside, and when the Minister was available, the Committee could engage with them.

Meeting Report

USAASA performance report

Ms Nonkqubela Jordan-Dyani, Acting Director-General (DG), Department of Communications and Digital Technologies (DCDT), said she was aware of the difficulties the Committee had come across in the entity, and were cognisant of what was happening. She recognised that the Committee was there to help, and with its guidance USAASA would do what they were supposed to, and would work towards connecting the whole of South Africa. She would look into the questions that were supposed to be answered, and respond in writing

Mr Sipho Mngqibisa, Executive Manager: USAASA, took the Committee through the presentation, which touched on the entity’s performance trends for 2019/20, where it had achieved 50% of its performance targets.

Mr Frik Nieman, Acting Chief Financial Officer (CFO), USAASA, took the Committee through the audited financial statements. Its achievements included 89.1% internet access at existing connected sites, and the Universal Service and Access Fund (USAF) 2020-2023 multi-year procurement plan being approved by the board. Areas of under-achievement included the reconnection of two identified local municipalities and the installation of 66.66% of the set-top boxes (STBs) inventory delivered in post office warehouses.

The Committee was also taken through the implementation status of the Auditor-General of South Africa’s (AGSA’s) audit recommendations for USAF in the 2018/19 financial year, where 50% of their matters had been resolved and the unresolved cases would be a matter of forensic investigation.

[see presentation attached for details]

Discussion

Mr Mackenzie opened with the first question by referring to the DG’s remarks about “connecting the whole country,” and said it seemed like an admirable but very ambitious statement to make. He had noticed that Vhembe district was mentioned as one of the as one of the National Health Insurance (NHI) networks to be connected. In the last term, the Department of Telecommunications and Postal Services had carried out an oversight visit to this district in Limpopo, and one of the people had been contracted to roll out a network in the Vhembe district – to connect schools and clinics in the area. He could not find out how much was paid for these networks -- it was anything from R23 million to R41 million -- but the network equipment was of a bad quality, and sites were not working. He asked for an update from USAASA on how Vhembe district was doing, if there had been a check up to see if they were still working, and if the schools were connected.

Regarding SAPO and the set-top boxes, on page 28 of the USAASA report, there was a reference to a lack of cooperation from SAPO, and in the USAF annual report, there was talk of a lack of a monitoring mechanism and the failure by the agency to conduct monitoring. It seemed as if there was a shared responsibility for the failure of the entities to keep track of how much stock they had. Based on this, the question was what the extent of this discrepancy was.

Had there been any progress generally on consequence management, as it was known that the entity had had problems with this in the past?  Were any Special Investigating Unit (SIU) investigations taking place? Had any been concluded, and what had been the result? Was there any disciplinary action?

On page 64, six bursaries were listed at R63 279 -- what were the details of these bursaries?

In the USAASA report on page 68, there was mention of legal matters, and one of the major contributors to the R126 million was the litigation. What was the progress on this, and was the entity close to resolving it?

He was not sure if these reports were being printed, but they were riddled with spelling errors throughout which could be resolved with a standard spell check. It tended to indicate a lack of attention to detail.

Ms Van Damme commented that she was confused by what was going on at USAASA. Last year, the Minister had told the Committee that SITA and USAASA were going to be repurposed and an administrator was going to be appointed. Now there was an interim board. Was the repurposing not happening anymore? Could this be clarified?

There seemed to be a problem with the Minister not coming to meetings. She was grateful for the Deputy Minister diligently attending every meeting, but it was not fair for her to answer questions that the Minister should have to answer, and it was disrespectful to the Committee of Parliament for the Minister to not make herself available for these meetings. A line needed to be drawn regarding this. There were questions that the Minister must be held accountable for.

Normally, when an interim board was appointed, the public would be informed, but there seemed to be no press statement regarding this appointment. While it was the responsibility of the Minister to do so, it was also an area of accountability, and the Committee needed to know who the interim board was, and establish if they had the expertise for the job.

USAASA had a very important mandate, such as informing the Minister on ICT policy. The government had been talking about the fourth industrial revolution (4IR), but USAASA seemed to be asleep at the wheel. Half of the targets were not achieved, which was very mediocre. However, the ICT benchmark report and the research plan mentioned were interesting, as the Committee needed to focus on the digital technologies’ aspect of the portfolio, and zero in on that. In other countries, Covid-19 had been used an opportunity to implement digital transformation, and South Africa had been identified as one of the countries that had not done that. It was the Committee’s responsibility, particularly with technologies, to make sure that the entities that had the opportunity to do that, such as USAASA and SITA, did so.

She unimpressed by the entity telling the Committee that only half of their targets had been achieved. She was sorry that this question had to be directed to the Deputy Minister, but she was representing the Minister. What was happening with USAASA -- was it being repurposed or not, how long had the interim board been appointed for, and would an administrator be appointed?

An issue that Mr Mackenzie had been passionate about was spectrum, and hopefully the interim board spoke about USAASA’s role and its importance. There had been an interdict yesterday, so could the Deputy Minister please explain what discussions were being held with Telkom regarding the auction that was set to happen.

Ms N Khubheka (ANC) asked if the Committee could get some clarity from the Deputy Minister on the executive caretaker. Was he no longer there, as there was now an interim board? Could they get an indication of what the caretaker executive was supposed to deliver to USAASA to assist them?.

USAASA’s last quarter was a little bit challenging, but in the second quarter report, they say they have increased the business development management (BDM) support from 75 to 89%. What she would like to understand was what they were doing about all the targets they could not achieve, and the tasks that were still incomplete.

Department’s response

Deputy Minister Kekana asked the acting DG to clarify some of the concerns the Members had, such as on the appointment of the interim board, the issue of whether the administrator was still there, and the executive from USAASA would then deal with operational matters.

Ms Jordan-Dyani responded to the two questions posed by Ms Khubheka and Ms Van Damme regarding the status of the board and the executive caretaker. The interim board in place was replacing the executive caretaker. Members would recall that last year, the Cabinet had approved the appointment of caretakers at USAASA and SITA. The intention had been to reposition them, as they were working towards the finalisation of a new state digital service company as well as the establishment of a digital development and challenge fund, which was going to replace USAASA.

In assessing the progress at USAASA, there were concerns with regard to the decline in performance of the organisation. It was a bad a juncture that the decision had been made to replace and then terminate the contract of the executive caretaker. The intention had been was to go back when the Minister appointed an interim board which included Ms Daphne Kula-Rantho as the chairperson, Mr Simphiwe Thobela, Mr Talelani Ramaru, Ms Mpuleng Moropa and Ms Buhle Tonise. The interim board was appointed and it would set up the appropriate governance structures, as well as the relevant committees.

The process was to take the digital development fund to Cabinet for approval and consideration. Thereafter, it would be tabled to Parliament for it to process and consider. That was the reason why they were terming it an interim board, as it was for the duration until they could establish the new digital development and challenge fund.

Mr Mngqibisa responded to the Mr Mackenzie’s question regarding USAASA providing broadband connectivity, where he had made reference to the Vhembe municipality. During that financial year because the Electronic Communications Act (ECA) allowed USAASA into the areas which were classified as under-serviced, they could go through a competitive bidding process and try to provide the communities with gird connectivity. Management at the time had taken into consideration the objectives that sought to ensure that small and medium enterprises (SMEs) were also part of the ICT landscape, and as per USAASA’s model, they were now giving preference to an SME instead of taking a larger, established operator. They had been appointed to roll out in Mutale and Albert Luthuli municipality in Mpumalanga. This service provider had rolled out the infrastructure, but while it was being rolled out there was a leadership change in the agency. Normally when there was a leadership change, the new broom sweeps clean. However, when the new CEO came aboard, there had been some challenges and delays involving the service provider, because there were now outstanding payments, which was why the infrastructure was in that state. Subsequent to that visit by the Portfolio Committee to Mutale and Mpumalanga, they had worked very closely with the Independent Communications Authority of South Africa (ICASA) to resolve some of the issues that were identified during that visit. As such, those municipalities were now connected.

The challenge had been that there was limited funding, because when looking at the under-serviced areas, they were normally supposed to be connected until such a time that the municipality’s socio-economic status improved and it was able to take over the connectivity. This was why management had reached a conclusion that they would connect for a period of only two years so that they could afford to connect other municipalities whilst hoping for clients such as the Department of Education, where schools were being connected, and the municipality itself, would actually take over the connectivity. As it stood, Mpumalanga and Mutale were not connected now. The organisation had gone through a process of remodelling the broadband and wanted to give this model a year’s opportunity to see how it would work. It was hoped that the municipalities that were connected previously would then be connected using a similar model.

It had been suggested that there was a lack of cooperation from SAPO, while at the same time there was also a lack of money that was highlighted in report. Firstly, with SAPO, it was a third party – it was appointed by the agency to assist in terms of logistics and distribution of STBs while at the same time managing the installers. The SAPO, in terms of the service level agreement (SLA), was supposed to keep accurate records of the STBs. Now they could not manage to keep accurate reports when they were called to account for specific things, which was why they were saying there was a lack of cooperation. When management decided to do an open review process, SAPO had requested an independent review, partly to ascertain the number of Set-Top boxes.

Regarding the lack of monitoring, the entity was supposed to evaluate the inventory against the explanations and payments, but the process was not followed completely. This was why there was a lack of monitoring.

In terms of the quantifying how many STBs were involved, the CFO and the acting chief internal auditor would have to report.

With regard to consequence management, some people had been suspended, but disciplinary hearing processes were yet to take place. They could submit an extensive report when it came to consequence management.

There had been no related SIU investigations. The only investigations done by the agency were coordinated by the internal audit department, through National Treasury. There was an investigation on broadband that was rolled out in the OR Tambo district, and another relating to the STB system.

Regarding the USAASA bursaries, and the area of legal impediments, he requested permission to submit a written response, because the acting executive: corporate services and the legal manager were not part of this meeting.

There had been a comment on the issue of procurement. From the management side, the annual reports submitted, the experiences of a service provider called yesdirect, and all the reports sent to Parliament, were in a pdf format and done by a professional entity. That was why there had been a request for Mr Mackenzie to share the reports, because the ones sent out were on pdf.

Referring to the comments of Ms Van Damme on USAASA’s reports on non-achievement, when it came to the critical activities that the agency had to achieve, in most cases instances it found itself in circumstances of not being able to achieve, and this was attributed to the leadership instability. When looking at the USAASA audit reports, even the AGSA had picked up on the instabilities. What would happen at the beginning of the financial year would be that there was a board, a CEO and executives. For quarter one, the performance indicators would be achieved and then in quarters three and four one would find there were suspensions. All these things impaired the organisation’s ability to execute key performance indicators because decisions were needed and if the CEO or CFO were not there and people were temporary, the necessary action did not take place. There were various things that made USAASA unable to achieve its targets.

Ms Khubheka had mentioned two indicators that the entity did not achieve - the installations of STBs to qualifying households. In a previous sitting last year, the Committee had asked about the appointment of Sentech, which was now the information partner, while the Post Office remained on board. His colleagues in the oversight branch in the Department and the current DG had started to ensure proper coordination between Sentech, SAPO and all the entities involved in the value chain. There was also a coordinated plan that the Department was driving. As such, they were required to report on a weekly basis.

There was also the issue of broadband and whether the entity was going to revise its delivery model, and how this process was going to pan out and if it would delivers results. USAASA was hoping to achieve this, as it was intent on connecting other municipalities. It had also improved its coordination in working with the Department because there was the infrastructure branch that coordinates with SA Connect, and there were certain requirements that a service provider had to have before they could be appointed. They also had some monitoring mechanisms they were using to ensure that they delivered. The entity had since synergised their processes while improving relations with ICASA so that when it came to key issues pertaining to services, there was knowledge of the regulatory requirements and what needed to be complied with. That would assist the entity in rolling out services, as at least ICASA and the Department would be able to assist in monitoring.

Ms Jordan-Dyani commented that Mr Mngqibisa had covered most of the points, and the internal audit and corporate services would deal with the matter of consequence management, including the R53 million discrepancy unaccounted for. That would be responded to in writing.

Mr Z Mbhele (DA) asks what the core critical issues at play here were. It seemed as if there really was an issue around contract management monitoring and evaluation, because it was in very few instance that USAASA was the implementing agency or carrying out the interactions of service provision. In the annual report, there were a lot of similar phrases that talked about the lack of contract management of service providers and the failure to monitor the service agreement with SAPO. It was only after a contract was awarded to one of the service providers that it had been discovered they were not properly licensed and therefore it was stopped, as it would have resulted in irregular expenditure. Clearly, therefore, there was a problem around the contract design, awarding and monitoring. This seems to be the core issue, so he was asking for some clarity and in complete detail -- what were the interventions being done to address these problem areas? Was it training, staff or an ICT issue? What assurance was there that this would be seen to effectively?

Mr Mackenzie followed up with a comment regarding the ‘post war on virus era,’ where the Committee was meeting digitally, recalling that when there were physical meetings in Parliament, the delegations of the entities were spilling over the room, and it was full of people. There was never someone in that room who was not capable of answering questions. It now seemed almost par for the course that when they met on a digital platform, which only required a smartphone, the whole delegation could be present to answer a question. However, none of his questions had been answered satisfactorily. There was an assurance that the answers would be in writing, but that was not how the Committee should work. There should be a flow of information back and forth. This scenario of answers in writing was unacceptable, and he requested that the Chairperson comment strongly on that.

Ms Van Damme would like to echo Mr Mackenzie on what had become a standard response to difficult questions, which was to respond in writing. These meetings were an opportunity to ask questions and then interrogate them. If someone was unable to answer a question, they should contact someone who could give them the relevant information.

She still did not understand the CEO’s assertion that leadership instability was part of the reason why targets were not being met, and that confusion was impacting on the ability of USAASA to do its job. She still did not understand the matter which another Member had mentioned that what was happening with the interim board, and the response of the acting DG had been that this was because of the establishment of the digital fund, which still did not answer the question. What was the digital fund? What was its aim? It was understood that it had been submitted to the Cabinet, but it was important to understand how this affected USAASA and SITA. She asked if the DG could give a little more detail about this fund -- how it was going to be managed, and what it was for. Had money been allocated for it?

She repeated that the Minister needed to be present to explain decisions that were made that related to the entities.

She asked if the Deputy Minister was able to respond regarding the Telkom interdicts.

The Chair asked if the Deputy Minister wanted to comment on anything, but she said she was fine and the DG would respond.

Mr Mngqibisa responded to the question of Mr Mbhele on the issue of contract management. Internally, what had happened was that if there was a contract that needed be signed, the process did not go through an audit. There had since been an improvement, so that if there was a contract in place, there was normally a committee established to look at it. Those contracts were now also presented, whereas previously contracts just began. The new integrated approach to matters was something the management had paid a lot of attention to. In particular, when looking at the new contract with Sentech, various people within the business with different expertise had been requested to comment and give their inputs. There was now a steering committee immediately after contracting, which did oversight. There had been some improvement In terms of project management.

Ms Jordan-Dyani commented that Mr Mngqibisa had described what the organisation had undertaken on contract management. Together with monitoring and evaluation, the organisation was now sending teams on the ground to evaluate the assurance provided by Sentech, which was the installation company. USAASA was also doing their own internal dashboarding and database management to reconcile the sets of data received from service providers. One of the reasons Sentech had been employed was because they had a monitoring capability, which meant USAASA could go back to some of the towns that were said to be concluded, but where quality assurance had not yet been completed. These were mechanisms that the organisation had put in place to address the previous lack of ability to oversee.

Regarding the unanswered questions, she was surprised that key people, such as the executive auditor and the executive of the corporate services, were not invited to this meeting, because of the sensitivity of the information and the potential risk of the information that they held regarding employees who were suspended. This was information that she and operations officials were not privy to because of the sensitivities. That information was there, and her colleagues had put it together to take the board through it with regard to consequence management.

Mr Simpiwe Thobela: Member of USAASA’s interim board, commented that the interim board was fairly new, having been inexistence for hardly two weeks. It was important to indicate to the Members two points that were very important -- contract management and the monitoring and evaluation function. It was correct of the Members to point out that this was a problem, and the interim board had also noted this as a major concern. Part of what contributed to the contract management challenges was that the supply chain function, for example, was limping because there were a lot of suspensions.

In terms of public finance management, the contract management function was supposed to be sitting at the SCM level, and should not be on an ad hoc basis. This seemed to be a long standing issue, particularly when USAASA managed large contracts. That was one of the things that had been established by the interim board, and it was looking into turning that around quickly.

From the quality assurance point of view, the audit executive was on suspension, and there seemed to be issues there too. There was then a focus at the first committee meeting to deal with the specific matters in the reports. This included the process of how to fast track the suspensions and the disciplinary process, because the longer people sat in suspension, the more they sat at home and earned salaries and the few that were at work were taking on the workload of others. This was a major issue that the interim board was focusing on turning around.

During the first week, no acting CEO had been appointed because some of the things that were supposed to happen were not happening. This had impacted on performance, because nobody had been taking responsibility. They were looking below the CEO level on how to respond to other issues that were a challenge in the organisation

Lastly, the Members were spot on regarding monitoring and evaluation. It was a matter that would be looked into on an ongoing basis to ensure that it was linked to contract management. It had to be made a follow up and evaluation function which was not an ad hoc function, but rather a standing function on all areas that spend public money, and it should be proven that value had been derived from it. It was the responsibility of the board to ensure there was a focus on these areas.

Ms Jordan-Dyani said she would like to answer two questions, the first one being about the interdict. The Department had issued a statement late yesterday. Everyone was rather worried at the implications of the judgment, purely because of the delays this would have on the country’s agenda. As government, they were relying heavily on the option of the spectrum, and also for this sector, the spectrum was very critical towards achieving their socio-economic development. The spectrum that was now supposed to be released was going to seek to resolve issues related to the transformation of the sector, expanding participation especially to disadvantaged groups.

The Minister was still facilitating an engagement amongst all parties to see if this matter could not be resolved out of court. At the same time, the Department was prioritising the completion of the migration, so that spectrum could be freed up. A project management office had been set up, and there were meetings as a team in the Department daily and then widely with all the implementing agencies.

In the last engagement, there had been a request to update the Portfolio Committee, and there was a commitment to this. The first report was being finalised and would be sent through to the Chairperson’s office.

In response to Ms Van Damme’s question, which referred to the establishment of the digital development fund, she apologised if her initial answer had not been comprehensive. With the Chair’s permission, she would like to take the Committee through the digital development fund, its purpose and its intent.

Continuing with her explanation of the fund, she said that in 2016, the national integrated ICT policy White Paper had been adopted. This was intended for the transformation of South Africa towards an inclusive and innovative digital and knowledge society. The policy white paper proposed several institutional arrangements, to which Ms Van Damme had alluded. This included new digital state entities, the digital infrastructure company which was going to be an aggregation of all the digital infrastructure assets, focusing on Broadband Infraco (BBI) as well as Sentech. Those were the infrastructure gaps sitting with other state entities such as Eskom, the South African National Roads Agency Limited (SANRAL) and the Passenger Rail Agency of South Africa (PRASA), so the desire was to aggregate that.

The digital services company would reposition SITA to become a broader service company, as well as ensure it stimulated innovation in the country. The other matter was an institutional proposal with regard to an integrated new competitions regulator. This was still being worked on to ensure that it was more responsive to the market.

There had also been a proposal to establish a digital development challenge fund, which was going to look at the revision and the dissolution of universal services and the reconfiguration of USAASA. This was a new fund and was being taken to Cabinet this month. Its mandate would be to focus on the core financing of projects. This was partially being done under section 89 of the ECA, where there were contributions by the licensees. However, the intent was innovation, seeking to support development, ensuring that as a country they were very much focused on enterprise and localisation and boosting digital skills.

The intent was to boost South Africa, making it competitive and able to produce platforms as well as innovation, and increase and address issues related to research and development (R&D) investment and innovation. There was a hope that it could be introduced to Parliament for consideration within this year, and have it operational by the next financial year. The fund would operate as a section 3a of the public entity under the Public Finance Management Act (PFMA), and that was why there were proposed changes to the Electronic Communications Act, to respond to this and the disestablished USAASA, and then to look into the renaming and repurposing of it within this fund.

Current, USAASA staff would either be absorbed by the new agency or alternatively absorbed into the Department, and they had assurance that there would be no jobs lost.

The Chairperson wanted to be sure he had not missed a point, and asked if the DG was saying that a rapid response team for Broadcasting Digital Migration (BDM) had now been established. Were they saying that from a point of governance, there would now be an interim board at USAASA, because that was directly linked to whether it could carry out the project or not? He just wanted clarity in summarising what should be done going forward.

The DG commented that USAASA had been tasked as the project manager for BDM. Currently there was a process of recruitment, but because the President had made an announcement that they must have concluded with the analogue switch-off by 31 March 2022, work was being done with the team members currently there. As indicated, the various stakeholders would be Sentech and SAPO. USAASA was leading this, and was in the process of recruiting the district coordinators. The Department had administrators who had been working on this in terms of a Project Management Office (PMO) on digital broadcasting. She clarified that USAASA did not have a full staff compliment, but it was the best positioned to be the district coordinators and the head of this project. However, because the implementation had to be fast tracked, the employment of people could not wait and things needed to get moving in the interim

The Chairperson said he still did not have clarity. The question to the DG had been informed by a report in the previous meeting. With the time period involved, and understanding the directive in terms of SONA, as things stood USAASA did not have the capacity to deliver on this directive. For that reason, two matters were important -- the government intervention in USAASA, and secondly, a rapid response team so that the reliance was not on a USAASA that had insufficient capacity. It was to ensure that it did not get to the point where blame was on those in leadership positions, which was what had been agreed to when entities did not deliver, and therefore certain actions needed to be taken. In this regard, this appointment needed to be approved, and therefore there were governance issues, and the interim board represented that aspect. To be clear on this, it was not as if there was no team -- there was a team such as the Department’s oversight unit. Could the DG give a very specific answer -- was there now a rapid response team, dedicated to this BDM programme? If it was still to be approved, please indicate that this was the case.

Ms Jordan-Dyani replied that they were still in the process of recruitment, and that it had not yet been finalised.

The Chairperson, in closing the discussion on this matter, said that firstly there were matters that they as the Committee needed to remind themselves, but a point that was being emphasised was that it needed progress reports more often, so that as the reports came in, it would not be regarded as a new process that excluded the Committee. Ms Van Damme could have been referring to this, where the Committee did not know what the fund was. The reality of the matter was the Committee had been presented with some road map. It was a matter where the Committee had to continue to get updates. That had been raised in previous meeting, so that everything was not left to the Minister and the Committee could remind itself of its own decisions.

What was clear was that there were matters that would be long term, given the timelines that were proposed. The fund, according to what the entity had reported to the Committee, would probably be a matter for the 2022 financial year, making the assumption that it was post-March 2022. With that being the case, it meant there were certain things that must happen in the interim. One was that the board, having understood what the challenges are, should be able to give a sense of at least what their plan was, with clear timelines, and understanding what the commitment was -- that there should be a switch-off by March 2022.

There also had to be readiness to work with such a response team, so that there were no governance challenges post implementation. The Committee would then have to get regular reports, as this was one of those priority projects that would not be added to the ten years of non-implementation. Monitoring through the oversight work should help unblock any challenges so that there could be implementation in this regard.

The other matter to explore after listening to what the Department was proposing, was whether some aspects could not be addressed in the interim. When looking at the report that had been processed, USAASA’s performance had dropped due to capacity problems. With USAF, there was also a history of not delivering. In the interim, it was something to look at, as part of the capacity building exercise, whether the required resources could not be put where they were supposed to be, so the fund could remain focused on funding the projects, rather than trying to execute what may be in their purview.

Also, there needed to be a serious commitment to meeting deadlines. There were still questions that were not previously answered. The fourth quarter was ending in two weeks, which meant the end of the financial year, so there should not be a repeat of these problems.

The Chairperson called on the Committee to follow through on the decisions that had been taken, and what the Committee had already resolved. He hoped that the support staff was beginning to work on that. He said that for every quarter that programme was done, the first week should focus on tracking the resolutions taken in the previous week, and whether they had been acted on. He asked if there were any objections to that.

The Chairperson said there were no objections and that the guidance given by the meeting had been understood.

Ms Jordan-Dyani acknowledged all of the Chairperson’s closing remarks, and had noted them. Because the interim board would like to work with the Portfolio Committee, they would ensure that the resolutions that needed to be implemented were implemented. If not, there should be a reason, and one that was acceptable. The interim board would make sure that with the guidance given, everything was done.

The meeting was adjourned

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