Isimangaliso Wetland Park Authority & South African Weather Service 2015/16 Annual Performance Plans & 1st Quarter 2015/16 performance

Meeting report

Opening remarks
Acting Deputy Director General: Protected Areas, Department of Environmental Affairs, tendered the apologies of the Minister and Deputy Minister who were unable to attend this meeting due to prior engagements.

iSimangaliso Wetland Park 1st quarter performance report
Ms Terri Castis, Commercial Development Director, iSimangaliso Wetland Park, noted that game management targets had not been met by the Wetland Park (SWP or the Reserve) this quarter. Although there were planned introductions of various animals, only two black rhino were introduced. A serious drought and the fact that there were no water tanks led to the postponement of plans to introduce various other animals. Tenders had been invited for removals of some dredge soil in the Reserve, but tenders had not yet been awarded.
 

SWP had not created any permanent jobs this quarter, although its target was to create two. There was an ongoing recruitment process, which looked at absorbing some interns currently at the Reserve as permanent staff. The school awards programme had been designed, and would be starting in the coming week, spread between 40 schools.
 

SWP had targeted receiving133 362 visitors this quarter, but only achieved 113 686, although it had some technical issues with the recording of visitor numbers. No advertisements had been placed, as part of a policy to avoid paid advertising.

Discussion

Mr T Hadebe (DA) raised concerns about the failure of SWP to absorb its interns as permanent staff. This should have been done already and was a key part of the entity’s role. The entity was able to create more than 800 temporary jobs, and it was an indictment that it had, despite this, not managed to appoint two permanent staff in this quarter.

The Chairperson said that he was worried that some baselines had been used as quarterly baselines in the report, but were actually annual baselines. This posed questions around the legitimacy of the targets and results achieved. SWP also needed to elaborate on areas where it had greatly overachieved, and then possibly look to re-evaluating targets and baselines. Broadly speaking, the entity had achieved well but its operations and obstacles to its operation had not been made clear by the presentation. The failure of SWP to obtain and introduce more animals to its park needs to be further explained. If external conditions changed the possibility of the entity achieving its goals, these conditions need to be explained. New initiatives or responsibilities should not have a baseline of zero; they should be explained and introduced as new in the document.
 

Ms Castis said that she would make the baselines more consistent throughout the document in future performance reviews. SWP was not a big employer, and derived most of its money for training and employment from Extended Public Works Programme funds. The delay in finalising two permanent jobs had been related to a delay in the recruitment process. The seriousness of this was now acknowledged and it would be treated as a serious matter. She pointed out, however, that these posts were not key posts, and so had not been prioritised in the past.
 

The Chairperson raised concerns about the importance for government entities to act quickly when hiring permanent staff, due to the societal implications of unemployed people who had applied and could be working sooner.

Mr Hadebe asked for clarification about the environmental awareness programmes that SWP performed in partnership with schools. He asked for more clarification on the significance of these targets and asked why SWP had outperformed its targets so greatly in this indicator?

Ms Castis said that its targets and baselines of visits from schoolchildren were volatile and changed greatly because of the changing policies of schools in terms of paying for transport for children to visit national parks.
 

The Chairperson said that the entities should report on their targets as a whole, and should show the Committee clearly the proportion of targets that had been achieved and those that had not. These issues should be rectified by the time the next quarterly performance review was presented to the Committee.
 

South African Weather Services presentation – radar data availability unusually low

Dr Linda Makuleni, Chief Executive Officer, South African Weather Service, firstly introduced Ms Ntsoaki Mngomezulu, the new Chairperson of the Board of the S A Weather Service (SAWS). the SAWS board, was with her in attendance.
 

Ms Mngomezulu said that she was honoured to be the new chairperson of SAWS and would do her best to monitor and improve the reporting and performance of the entity.
 

Dr Makuleni noted that she would be presenting the quarterly performance for the 2014/2015 financial year, the first quarter performance review for 2015/2016 and the implementation of the annual performance plan. The Auditor-General had given his approval to the work of SAWS, and any control issues identified as needing attention had been rectified and there would be a focus on them in planning and leadership strategies.

Overall customer satisfaction had increased from 84.7% to 84.8% from 2014 to 2015, while the quality rating had dropped from 85.9% to 84.4%. The organisational image has regressed slightly from 83.5% to 83.4%.
 

She reported that all four targets were achieved in terms of ensuring continued relevance of the organisation in delivering meteorological and related products and services. Seven out of eight targets were achieved in terms of stakeholder, partner and client relations. Two out of three targets were achieved under the goal of short-term viability and long-term sustainability. Three out of four targets were achieved under the goal of ensuring continuous organisational efficiency. SAWS had not achieved 15% of its targets, or four out of 27.
 

SAWS failed to instigate an increase of 17% of its existing commercial partners, although it had interacted with AfriGIS and HydroLogic and expected agreements to be finalised in 2015/2016. It also failed in the target to increase its commercial revenue growth by R26 million, and only increased by R12.5 million in 2014/2015. One of the main clients of SAWS is Eskom, and a significant deal between SAWS and Eskom was shelved during this financial year, which contributed to this underachievement. Adverse economic conditions also contributed to this issue.
 

Radar data availability had not reached the target of 70% and instead remained at 56.81%. The maintenance budget for these radar systems had been identified as a reason for this deficiency, especially because the lead-time for getting spares could be up to 10 months. Load shedding also greatly affected the working of these radar systems. Some of these radars were available and submitted data, but some of them did not function for large periods of time.
 

SAWS had planned to perform a climate survey of its place in the market, based on engagement with various stakeholders, but this was deferred due to lack of funds. This lack of funding was due to the failure of SAWS to properly engage with the Department of Environmental Affairs in order to stress the importance of getting funding for this purpose. 75 bursaries had been planned for 2014/2015, but only 62 were awarded. The training of identified successors to take over positions had been planned to increase by 20%, but some training programmes were deferred again, due to financial constraints.

SAWS was able to publish 28 scientific articles in the last year.
 

Ms Marilize Hogendoorn, Chief Financial Officer, SAWS, described the financial position in the 2014/15 year. The total revenue of SAWS went from R277 million in 2013/14 to R280 million in 2015/16, which was an increase of 1%. Total expenditure went up from R269 million in 2013/14 to R281 million in 2014/15, so there was a deficit of just over R1 million for 2014/15. This was a decrease from the surplus of R8.1 million seen in the previous year. The total deficit for the year, taking into account depreciation and other factors, was R25.6 million, compared to the last year in which there was a surplus of R40.1 million. SAWS had budgeted for R316 million expenditure but only spent R307.9 million in total. The total net variance between the budget and expenditure was 0.36%.
 

The government grant to SAWS represented 59% of its total revenue. Aviation income increased by 28% from R81.95 million to R104.5 million. Total assets decreased by 4%, while current assets decreased by 21.84%.
 

She noted that SAWS was now in the sustainability phase of its development as an entity and was working towards improving its asset management and budget spending, including donor and government funds. It would also focus on relevant projects that related to the greater goals of the country.
 

Discussion
Mr Hadebe asked for clarity on the expenditure increases, especially the salary increases. He also wanted to know why SAWS had failed to spend almost R9 million of its budget in 2014/15?
 

The Chairperson  said that the Committee was considerably more pleased with SAWS’ new performance review report than it had been with the last report presented. He commented that the way it was delivered was clear and the report was easy to interpret.

The Chairperson asked what were the implications to the State, as a donor to SAWS, when  with the previous report. The delivery is understandable and can be interpreted. He asked what were the implications to the state, as a donor to SAWS, when SAWS engaged in strategic partnerships with other entities from other states. He wanted to know to what extent SAWS was accountable for its actions to government, and how international partnerships changed the activities of SAWS?
 

Dr Makuleni said that SAWS needed to get approval from its shareholder, the government, before entering into any strategic partnership. These partners could bring technology, personnel, or other benefits to South Africa and SAWS, and each of the partnerships were planned and presented individually. SAWS engaged with the National Treasury before all partnerships were approved. There was only one partnership currently being planned that would be on equitable terms. Most of the other interactions were based on selling data and technology to other entities.
 

Ms Hogendoorn said that decreases in available funds for maintenance had led to the slight underspending of SAWS in 2014/15, because it had decided to cut back in order to remain as stable as possible, in light of possible further depreciation.
 

Mr Hadebe asked for more clarity on the responsibilities and key roles of SAWS.
 

Dr Makuleni said that SAWS had identified agriculture, water, health, disaster reduction and energy as key aspects of its strategy. It would use information that it gathered to help other entities that also had these aspects in their strategies. This information would be pooled, and entities could then work together to achieve collective goals through collaboration.
 

The Chairperson asked what the role of SAWS was in the production of 28 scientific publications. He also wanted to know the demographic breakdown of the scientists, and whether there was evidence of transformation in the specialty areas. He also asked what the reason was for SAWS outsourcing so much of its maintenance, and whether it was able to work towards employing permanent staff to do the jobs.
 

Dr Makuleni said that since 2008, SAWS had been working hard towards transformation. There are relatively small pools of previously disadvantaged specialists in the fields required by SAWS, which was another issue in achieving transformation. Whilst there were many young black scientists working at SAWS today, she was aware that it definitely needed to work hard to improve the depth of these black scientists. SAWS had 60% men and 40% women, and was close to having 70% black African staff. 24% of SAWS staff were white. Employment equity had been generally good.
 

The Chairperson said that Dr Makuleni had been too quick to say that employment equity had been successful. There was still a pressing need for black South Africans to move into and occupy employment in government entities, and the ratio of 24% white staff was of some concern.

The Chairperson said that overall, however, the Committee was quite happy with the work being done by SAWS. He emphasised that all entities presenting to portfolio committees needed to be upfront in presenting targets that had not been met and explain in detail the challenges they faced in achieving these targets.
 

Dr Makuleni said that the non-commercial revenue was an issue that SAWS was working on. SAWS had a project funded by the New Economic Partnership for Africa's Development (NEPAD) through which it provided information to South African farmers. This was a non-commercial project and a needs analysis would be done with the end-users of the information in the following quarter. However, it was difficult sometimes to correctly estimate the time that would be needed to complete a survey of this scale. There was still more engagement needed with several stakeholders before this project was rolled out.
 

The other area of concern related to the interaction of SAWS with the communities in which it worked. It was trying to rectify various issues through interactions with the community media in many different provinces. The provincial disaster management centres were also working with SAWS, but SAWS still needed to meet with many of these entities.
 

SAWS needed to reevaluate its targets based on available radar data, because the levels of funding for maintenance were too low to achieve these targets. The availability of this data had dropped at one point due to the depreciation of infrastructure, but it was now back at 70% availability, as of August.
 

The Chairperson asked where the targets of 80%, that were used in previous years for radar data availability, came from, and if there was a particular year in which SAWS was able to achieve the baseline. He asked if this target was compatible with the capacity of SAWS, or whether SAWS was inherently unable to operate at the levels implied by these targets.
 

Dr Makuleni said that over the past five years, SAWS had achieved 80% in several years. The rapid depreciation and lack of investment into infrastructure had led to the 56.81% achievement in the last year.
 

The Chairperson said that if this was the case, the 56.81% should be viewed as an exception and should not be used as a baseline in future targets. SAWS would clearly not achieve targets of getting R36 million for commercial revenue in the next quarter, because of a change of policies and a change in donor funding. These targets should be adjusted.
 

Dr Makuleni agreed with this, and said that the targets would be changed after various shareholders had been consulted.
 

The Chairperson thanked the delegations for their presentations. He noted that it would be very important for SAWS to come back and present on its performance review again. The Committee now had a better idea of the challenges and targets that SAWS had, and as a result the Committee could better evaluate the future activities of SAWS.
 

Dr Makuleni thanked the Portfolio Committee, and also extended thanks to the board of SAWS for its assistance in compiling the performance review.

General reporting issues

The Chairperson took the opportunity to discuss the presentation of reports with representatives of the Department of Environmental Affairs. He stressed that it was important that targets on air quality should be crafted with the use of exposure models for individuals, and that all reports should show more uniformity of presentation.
 

The meeting was adjourned.