Committee Legacy Report; Committee Report on the Middle East seminar

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International Relations

12 March 2014
Chairperson: Prof S Mayatula (ANC)
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Meeting Summary

The Committee considered its draft Committee Legacy Report 2009-2014. The Committee discussed at length a table in the Draft Report which spoke to the attendance of Members and had felt that it was not a true reflection of the work which Members were doing. This was because the table did not reflect the length of tenure of each MP as a member of this Committee. Also smaller political parties found it difficult to have a representative present as many committees met at the same time each week.
           
The Committee also considered its Report on the seminar in the Middle East and it was adopted unamended.

Meeting report

In the absence of the Chairperson Mr T Magama (ANC), the Committee elected Prof S Mayatula (ANC) as Acting Chairperson. 

Draft Committee Legacy Report (2009-2014)
The Acting Chairperson placed the Draft Report before the Committee for consideration, having assumed that Members had already perused it. He noted that a few technical amendments had been effected to it.

Mr S Ngonyama (COPE) stated that the report was after all a Committee Report and asked whether introductory comments by the Chairperson should not have been included in it.

The Acting Chairperson responded that he had assumed that what was before the Committee was the general template and format of what the document should look like.

Mr Ngonyama noted that the Portfolio Committee on Economic Development’s Legacy Report contained introductory remarks by the Committee Chairperson.

Mr M Booi (ANC) noted that it seemed as if there was not a uniform consistent way in which Committee Legacy Reports were done. Was Mr Ngonyama making a suggestion?

The Acting Chairperson responded that given time constraints and the fact that the Committee needed to adopt the Report in the current meeting, he suggested that the Draft Report be left as it was. There was in any case no draft or template which prescribed what should be included in the Report.

Mr J De Goede (DA) asked if the Draft Report had to be adopted in the current parliamentary term.

The Acting Chairperson reacted that the Draft Report had to be adopted by the current sitting parliament. 

Mr De Goede stated that he had only joined the Committee in 2014 and pointed out that he could not commit himself to issues that pertained to the work of the Committee in the preceding three years. He chose to recuse himself from accepting the Draft Report.

The Acting Chairperson proceeded to take the Committee through the Draft Report page by page.

The Committee effect minor technical spelling changes to the Draft Report where needed.

Members did engage in a discussion over a table contained in the Draft Report on the attendance of Members at meetings.

The Acting Chairperson said that the table showed how many meetings a Member had attended and also how many meetings the Committee had held each year. What it did not say was what the attendance of a Member should be or how many meetings a Member was expected to attend.

Mr Booi agreed that the table was a distortion. It was not a true reflection of the work done by Members. It did not speak to the attendance of meetings by Members who had explanations for their absence. Perhaps instead of using tables the Draft Report should contain explanations of the true state of affairs.

Mr Ngonyama suggested that footnotes explaining matters could be added at the bottom of the table. Or perhaps fractions could be used to show Members attendance.

The Acting Chairperson suggested the addition of another column in which it stated when a Member joined the Committee and compared the number of meetings actually attended to what could have been attended by the Member.

Mr Booi pointed out that some of the smaller political parties only had one representative in Parliament and hence could not attend each and every meeting. The circumstances of each Member must be considered on its merits. The attendance recorded reflected badly on some Members. Members of some of the smaller parties were consistent in their work but attendance as reflected in the Draft Report would reflect badly on them.

The Acting Chairperson said that the figures should relate to the individual Member. The reality was not being reflected.

Mr E Sulliman (ANC) felt that the Committee Section should correct the Draft Report.

The Acting Chairperson said that going that route needed time which the Committee did not have.

Mr Booi said the problem arose when Committee Reports appeared in the public domain on the parliamentary website. It would reflect badly on Members "but would be seen as a true reflection". When in actual fact it was not a genuine reflection of how Members did their work. He was not sure what the Committee intended to do about it.

Mr Ngonyama asked whether practically it was part of the template of the Legacy Report to have such a table. The Portfolio Committee on Economic Development of which he was a member, did not have such a table in their Legacy Report. He felt that if there was no template for legacy reports in any case then there was no need for the table and it could be removed. It would be better to explain in words in paragraph form the practicalities of attending meetings by Members. If the table was required, the Committee alternatively could make a recommendation on these points about attendance which Members were concerned about.

Mr De Goede felt that if the table was not needed then it could simply be deleted. If it was required, the Committee could state that it was incorrect and that it should be corrected.

Ms W Newhoudt-Druchen (ANC) pointed out that official leave of Members was also not reflected in the table. She agreed that the table be deleted from the Draft Report.

Ms Lineo Mosala, Committee Content Adviser, responded that the Legacy Report template did have an attendance table. She suggested that the 1st column be kept and a 2nd column be added. There would thus be a column naming the Member and a second column speaking to length of membership. The rest of the detail the Chief Whip could deal with. A legacy report must reflect the membership of a committee.

Mr De Goede accepted what Ms Mosala suggested.

Ms Newhoudt-Druchen felt that the membership terms were still wrong.

The Acting Chairperson said that the Membership column must show when a Member joined the Committee. He proposed that if the table was part of the Legacy Report template, there had to be a written explanation that attendance did not relate to the meetings of the Committee for that year.

Mr Booi suggested that the Committee reflect Membership only. Attendance of Members in the table was distorted.

Mr De Goede endorsed what Mr Booi said and suggested that the Committee could not make corrections at the present time.

The Acting Chairperson thus stated that the Draft Report would reflect firstly the names of Members in one column and in a second column reflect the membership terms of Members ie when they joined the Committee and, in addition, an explanation that it did not reflect the attendance of Members.

Mr De Goede wished to note that the Draft Report contained some valuable observations and it was unfortunate that the Committee could not highlight those issues in the present meeting.

Mr Ngonyama said that he would still have preferred it if the Chairperson could have made a statement on the functioning of the Committee in the Draft Report. But if it was not meant to be, he would be fine with it. 

Mr Booi noted that the Chairperson could still write such a statement.

Mr De Goede was not too sure that it could be done afterwards.

The Acting Chairperson, speaking to the key challenges of the Committee, said that the Committee needed to be treated differently to other committees about oversight visits. The Committee needed to travel abroad to do oversight visits to embassies. It was the nature of the Committee’s work. How could the Committee could be expected to do oversight only once a year? The Committee needed a special recommendation on this matter. The oversight model of the Committee needed to be relooked at as it related to the mandate of the Committee. If the issue had already been taken up by the Committee Chairperson, Mr Magama, then all that the Committee needed to do was to make a follow up.

Ms Newhoudt-Druchen stressed that the Committee needed to explicitly state what it wanted.

Mr Booi pointed out that the issue had been covered sufficiently on page 9 of the Draft Report. He asked if all Members were satisfied.

Ms Newhoudt-Druchen reiterated that the Committee needed to be explicit that the parliamentary oversight model needed to be relooked at as embassies were all over the world. The nature of the Committee’s work was to do oversight over embassies.

The Committee agreed with what Ms Newhoudt-Druchen was saying.

The Acting Chairperson placed the Draft Report before the Committee for adoption and it was adopted as amended.

Committee Minutes
Minutes dated the 6 November 2013, 26 February 2014 and 5 March 2014 were adopted as amended.

Committee Report on the seminar in the Middle East
Mr De Goede recused himself from participating in the adoption of the Draft Report as this was before his time as a member of the committee.

The Report was adopted by the rest of the Committee unamended.

The meeting was adjourned.
 

Present

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