Committee Reports on Communications, Telecommunications and Postal Services Budget

Meeting report

Welcome
The Chairperson, Ms M Kubayi (ANC) welcomed the Members to the meeting and said there were three reports to be worked on, and she hoped they had all received them. There were two budget votes to deal with but because Brand South Africa (BSA) falls under budget vote one it will have a separate report.  There would then be a report on budget votes nine and 27. The report is to be co-signed by both Chairpersons.

Report on Brand South Africa (BSA)
The Chairperson said she accepted that Members had gone through the report, and welcomed any questions.

Ms M Shinn (DA) said that the President should not be referred to as ‘His Excellency,’ as stated in section 2 of the clause on State of the Nation Address (SONA).

Ms L Maseko (ANC) said that the president is “the Excellency,” according to the protocol document, and the Chairperson clarified that in report writing, there should not be reference to ‘his excellency.’ 
Mr M Ndlozi (EFF) asked about the procedure followed when going through the report, and whether the adoption of the report would lead to BSA receiving funds.

The Chairperson said the report should reflect the work of the Committee in order to recommend approval by the National Assembly.

Clause 6a recommendation promoting BSA to South Africans
Mr G Davis (DA) objected to the recommendation in clause six of the document, which dealt with BSA focusing more on the domestic market.

Mr M Kalako (ANC) said the issue related to the role of BSA, which is to promote South Africa as a country. Hence the recommendation was right.

The Chairperson said sentence read: ‘there should be an equal focus’.  South Africa needs to be to be sold to South Africans first, but South Africans as ambassadors can also sell their country outside.

The co-Chairperson said there was an aspect of BSA’s interaction with other forums, like tourism.

Ms Maseko said the focus should be on internal markets, as the document speaks of localisation and the Committee should not compromise the country at the expense of other countries.

Mr Ndlozi said there was no agreement on the role of the BSA compared to other projects required to promote South Africa. There were challenges domestically of selling South Africa to South Africans. He was not that sure if the Committee increased the budget of BSA domestically, this meant it must also sell South Africa to the world. A project of patriotism should not coexist with an organisation that dealt with selling brands.

The Chairperson clarified that by law, the BSA was mandated to deal with both the domestic and international markets.

Mr Davis accepted the domestic part of the mandate, but section 3.1 of the document stated that the purpose of BSA is to “develop and implement a proactive marketing and communication strategy for South Africa to contribute to job creation and poverty reduction aimed at promoting … international trade, investment and tourism markets”. Hence the overall purpose of BSA was international, as it was previously called the International Marketing Council, and was designed to market South Africa abroad in order to attract investments and create jobs. The Committee was changing the emphasis away from international towards domestic, thus undermining the purpose of BSA.

Mr P Mabe (ANC) agreed that BSA should deepen patriotism among South Africans as they could not promote it outside the country if they did not know their own country. He agreed with the recommendations in the report.

The Chairperson noted that when BSA was formed, the mandate moved from focusing only on the international market, so BSA should give equal attention to both internal and external markets. She moved that the matter remained as it is.

Mr C Mackenzie (DA) said the BSA was not a travel agency and should not consider a pricing plan that was specific to South Africans, especially the poor. The BSA was about marketing and developing brands and not accommodating people, so the sentence should be removed.

The co-Chairperson answered by saying this was unfair, as the Parliament’s role of oversight was not to change the mandate of the institution. The issue was relevant, as it was within the mandate of BSA, and the Committee was not changing the mandate, as all Members had motivated it.
Ms Maseko moved the adoption of the report.

Mr Ndlozi said there was a risk of repetition, as the marketing activities of tourism was not the job of BSA.

The Chairperson said the issue of pricing was not within the mandate if BSA. They could only do branding.

The co-Chairperson said the Committee needed to move within the mandate, as it was the Committee’s report and it could remove the sentence if it was not relevant, based on the motivations given.

Mr Mackenzie supported the view of the dual mandate.

A Member sought clarity on section 6c about arranging workshops.

The Chairperson replied that BSA is to arrange workshops with Parliament on their engagement in promoting the country.

Mr Davis said an issue with BSA was that it was not clear if there was a return on the investment, and he recommended that the Committee ask BSA to develop a model that showed the spending of the money, and how it changed the perceptions of the target markets.  He suggested that the recommendation to be: ‘BSA to report to the Committee the research undertaken to understand the target market to ascertain the shifted perceptions and give an indication on whether there is return on the investment.’

Ms Shinn) said the DA reserved its position on the report because there were many issues that the party did not agree with, and might need to discuss.

Mr Ndlozi said the EFF reserved its position on the report, as the detail on the expenditure of BSA was unclear.

The report was adopted.

Report on budget vote 9
The Chairperson said the document would be co-signed by both Chairpersons.

Ms Shinn asked whether, in the table of contents, ‘communalisations’ was meant to be ‘communications.’  Inclusion of the National Development Plan as the national policy is the NDP, not the National Growth Plan (NGP).  There were grammatical errors in section 2.3.1 and 2.4.4. Under external challenges, the vote number is wrong -- it is supposed to be vote number 27, and not 26.  She noted section 5.2 had a repetition of recommendation number 6.

The Chairperson said the NGP is still a policy, and it has not been removed.

Mr Mackenzie said section 2.5.2 should be corrected to refer to ‘previous financial years and current financial years’.

The Chairperson asked Members to look at the recommendations for consideration.

Mr Ndlozi said there was a lack of emphasis on the diversification of media in respect of language usage, and investment in community media should include a medium that used different languages that needed support. This recommendation should come out strongly, as it was an opportunity to develop the indigenous languages in the country.

Mr Davis said the best medium is one that is financially sustainable and he felt the approach of the Media Development and Diversity Agency (MDDA) was to use government money that could compromise the independence of some media stations. Community media are empowered to attract their own revenue from the private sector, to avoid dependency on state money.

The Chairperson asked what would happen to those that could not find support. MDDA supported them to grow and the private sector always wanted to see returns on its investments.

Mr Ndlozi disagreed that privately funded stations would automatically gain independence.  The community media must be financially sustainable to gain independence.

Mr Davis said there must not be over-reliance on government funding.  Market research needed to be done to see what markets existed, and MDDA could help in that.
The Chairperson said the Committee should request the MDDA to conduct market research and provide a report to the Committee. The budget of MDDA showed there was already income coming through from other sources, but funding must go to the community directly.
Mr Davis said the MDDA should to establish a programme to help community media to be financially independent, and that when MDDA funds a community medium the objective must be to enable the medium to be independent. The assistance should be to give them initial funding and let them find other financial sources to move forward.  
On the issue of language, Mr Mackenzie had an issue with the word ‘prioritization’ and suggested the use of the word ‘emphasis,’ as it changed the meaning of the statement.  The sentence would read: ‘Encourage a funding model that includes the promotion and emphasis that encourages the use of indigenous languages’

Mr Ndlozi said prioritization should stay, as there was nothing wrong with that word, as the problem in South Africa was language.  The Member must say what is wrong with ‘prioritization’, as everything was in English.

Ms Maseko agreed with Mr Ndlozi that other languages were there, and the focus must move to prioritizing the indigenous languages.

Mr Mackenzie said the Committee would send a message to a Soweto station, for example, that their funding would be cut back because of prioritizing other languages.  Emphasising would not deprive other media, but would give the MDDA the flexibility to operate in other areas, and radio stations that were recipients of funding would not feel deprived.

The Chairperson said prioritizing meant they each fell within particular programmes in the MDDA. The issue of indigenous languages should come through.
Ms D Tsotetsi (ANC) said the justification was to protect marginalised indigenous languages.

The Chairperson suggested it stayed as it is.

Mr Mackenzie said recommendation seven did not make sense.   Having advertising media brokers did not make sense unless one helped the provinces and municipalities to make up their shortfalls in terms of subsidy to be paid by media buying agencies, and they were reimbursed a small fee. The sentence demonises advertising and media brokers. He asked how the provincial government would carry out this recommendation.

The Chairperson said it meant that the provincial government should be actively involved in the activities, and also pay as others and use them for free. The trend is that advertising and media brokers contribute toward the reduction of revenue.

Ms Shinn said recommendation seven should be changed.  MDDA should work with the provincial and local governments to place their advertising directly with the community media, rather than going through an agency.

It was accepted that the recommendation be changed as discussed and agreed by Members.

The report was adopted.  The DA and EFF reserved their positions.

Joint deliberation on budget vote 27
Ms Shinn said that on page five she would like a sentence saying the advertising campaign was now the subject of Special Investigating Unit (SIU) investigation.  She also said in section 5.5.1 on expenditure trends, where the corporation generates revenues mainly from television licences, she suggested ‘mainly’ be removed, as there were other sources.

Mr Mackenzie said in clause 5.5.1: “over the medium term revenue is expected to increase from R7.3 billion,” and later says “expenditure is expected to increase from R7.3 billion to 8.6billion”.   He asked that there be a check that the revenue and expenditure figures are identical, as it seemed too coincidental.

The Chairperson said this was expected, and not actual, spending. It was recommended that the SABC clarify that when they came to the Committee.

Ms Shinn needed clarity on the clause stating that the authority would acquire customer relations.

The Chairperson replied that it is about the Independent Communications Authority of South Africa (ICASA), which was to get new core modules, including customer relations and management to be used by licence holders.

A Member suggested the observation clause on SABC having subtitles in programmes to accommodate other communities, should be made a recommendation.  Observation 7 on the mandate of the Universal Service and Access Agency of South Africa (USAASA) being reviewed needed to be a recommendation.  A recommendation regarding USAASA’s sense of urgency should be added.

The Chairperson said they should rather be specific, as they were dealing with budget. It should not be removed from the observation part, but there could be a recommendation in line with that.

Mr Ndlozi said in the clause of reconstruction, he was not persuaded by the inclusion of reference to the strike.

The Chairperson said there were lots of strikes in the South African Post Office (SAPO), because of the demand to convert temporary workers to permanent workers, and the strikes impacted on delivery and performance.  The matter was closed.

Public Protector’s report
Mr Davis said recommendation one was laudable but needed to be more specific about what had been discussed. He suggested a recommendation that said that the Minister should implement the recommendation of the Public Protector’s report, as the Minister said she would do so.  
The Chairperson disagreed, saying that the agreement was for the Minister to get her report and submit it to the Public Protector (PP).  She would come back to Parliament to report once the report had been submitted. The Committee was dealing with budget.
Mr Davis disagreed and said the Minister committed to implement the recommendations, not report on it.
The Chairperson said the Minister said she would come back to Parliament once the report had been received, to report.  There should be no misrepresentations.
Mr Davis said further developments showed that the Minister went against the recommendations of the PP in the appointment of Mr Hlaudi Motsoeneng as the SABC Chief Operations Officer.
The Chairperson said Mr Davis was out of order, because it had already been established that this was not the forum to raise the issue.
Mr Ndlozi said he disagreed. He recollected that the Minister committed to the implementation of the recommendations and the Committee should get records and establish exactly what the commitments of the Minister were.
The Chairperson said she was sure what the Minister committed to and Mr Ndlozi should locate the minutes of the meeting if he wanted it verified.  She called a point of order on Mr Davis’ insistence and asked him to respect the procedures.  It was hid right to hold the Minister responsible as a Member of Parliament, but he should follow procedures.

Ms Shinn said there was a need to include the Minister’s response to the PP’s report, as it would have an impact on the operations and finances of the SABC.  The Committee must say that the issue was discussed and that the Minister had said she will report back.

Mr Ndlozi said the Committee needs to make observations about the SABC’s leadership crisis, and make relevant recommendations that the Minister would ensure compliance with the deadlines and recommendations of the public protector.

Ms Maseko said it did not mean that if it was in the news, it had been discussed at length, as it was not. The issue of instability had come up and the Minister had said she had met with the board and they given an undertaking to meet Parliament, and she would give a report.

Ms Mafolo agreed with what Ms Maseko said.

Mr Ndlozi said the PP’s report had implications on the issues, and there were irregularities at the SABC which should be included as an observation. The public was concerned about the appointment and the Committee should not remain silent. If the committee was to say that it has not received the PP’s report, the Chairperson should not deny that Members had raised concern about the leadership of SABC and the Committee had make an observation on that basis.
The Chairperson said she had not seen the PP’s report, and as the report might have many other issues, the Committee should not deal with it selectively. The Committee could not make an observation before receiving a presentation. She gave Mr M Ndlozi the procedure of how things were done and said the Committee must ask for the report and have it on their agenda.

Mr Ndlozi said the Committee should recommend the imposition of deadlines on specific targets on all entities and implementations.  He recommended that the plan on the industrial development strategy around expansion of the communications structure should come back to the Committee.

Mr Davis said as for the Ikamva National e-Skills Institute (INESI), R21 million out of R38 million went to salaries. There should be a recommendation for a review on the ratio on expenditure on salaries compared to its operating costs.

Mr R Tseli (ANC) said he had recommendations to make in line with the observations and recommended the need to review the mandate of USAASA, in line with the modern broadband. The current strategic plan of SABC3 should address the underperformance of the channel, and the disaster recovery plan.

The Chairperson said the outstanding recommendation was that the Minister of Communications, together with the SABC board, should report to Parliament on their response to the PP’s report. All entities should also include time frames along with their targets.

The report was adopted
Mr Ndlozi asked if the Committee was satisfied, as a lot of problems had been raised in the document.

Ms Shinn said the DA reserved its position. She sought clarity on Ministers addressing the budget votes.

The Chairperson thanked Members for the process.  The Co-Chairperson also thanked Members and Parliamentary staff for their work.

The meeting was adjourned.