Committee Report on Quarter 1 & 2 Performance of DIRCO & ARF

This premium content has been made freely available

International Relations

12 May 2021
Chairperson: Ms T Mahambehlala (ANC) and Mr D Moela (ANC)
Share this page:

Meeting Summary

Tabled Committee Report

In a virtual meeting, the Committee considered and adopted its report on the quarter one and two performance of the Department of International Relations and Cooperation (DIRCO) and the African Renaissance Fund (ARF). Members found the report highlighted quite a number of issues that have not been attended to by the Department. There was discussion on whether particular recommendations required particular timeframes for implementation. There was concern about the Department carrying targets over from quarter to the next despite the fact that there was permission to do so – it was said that this should not happen at the expense of discarding targets. It was important for the Committee to consider the Department’s responses to the report to enable the Committee to play its oversight role in making sure there is implementation of what the Committee recommended. There was concern that targets were not met and this would be closely monitored in the next quarters.

Members asked about the migration of the African Renaissance and International Cooperation Fund (ARF) to the South African Development Partnership Agency (SADPA).

Meeting report

The Chairperson, Ms T Mahambehlala, was 18 minutes late to the meeting.

Mr W Faber (DA) told the Committee that there was a regulation wherein a meeting that does not start within 15 minutes of the official start time is cancelled.

The Chairperson said Mr Faber could leave the meeting if he wanted to. She told him not to fabricate regulations.

Mr Faber welcomed the Chairperson and said that he had heard that she was having understandable delays.

The Chairperson asked Mr Faber what regulation he was referring to. She said that Mr Faber has caused a disruption. She said there was no such regulation.

The Chairperson asked if the Director- General or anyone else from the Department were present.

The Committee Secretariat said the Department was not present.

Mr Faber said that if a meeting is set to start at a certain time, then Members should be ready for the meeting at that time.

The Chairperson interrupted Mr Faber saying that the Department was not present and asked whether he was going to present on behalf of the Department, since he has a regulation only known to himself.

Mr Faber said that he believed the Chairperson was out of order. He said it is the Chairperson’s Committee and it is in her hands to decide what to do.

The Chairperson told Mr Faber to stop misfiring. She told him to allow the Chairperson to chair. She asked the Committee Secretariat where the Department was.

The Committee Secretariat said that the item that the Committee would be dealing with today was an internal matter.

The Chairperson asked what internal matter.

The Committee Secretariat said the internal matter was the consideration of the first and second quarter reports.

The Chairperson asked why the Department was not present.

The Committee Secretariat said that the Department was not invited.

The Chairperson asked if the Committee could move for the adoption of the agenda.

The agenda was adopted.

The Committee Content Advisor read out the Draft Report on the first and second quarter performance of the Department.

Discussion

The Chairperson asked Mr D Moela (ANC) to chair the meeting.

Mr Moela accepted being the acting Chairperson.

Mr Mpanza said the report highlighted quite a number of issues that have not been attended to by the Department. Do the recommendations in the report really deal with all those issues? Maybe they have been packaged into executive-like items. He proposed that some of the recommendations are given timelines. Some of the issues come from the first quarter. Timelines will prevent these issues from being carried over into the third or fourth quarters. Then there can be responses and the Committee can sit again to look at the responses in order for the Committee to be able to play its oversight role in making sure there is implementation of what the Committee recommended.

Ms T Msane (EFF) said that she did not see any mention of migration of the African Renaissance and International Cooperation Fund (ARF) to the South African Development Partnership Agency (SADPA) under the recommendations.

There is a statement under the conclusion on page 17 that says that the Committee is of the opinion that overall, Department was able to perform according to its goals it had set itself for the first and second quarters of the 2020/2021 reporting period. Ms Msane said she was against this statement because in most programmes, targets have not been met, for example the target to do with the review of international multilateral memberships, the review of bilateral agreements, the property management strategy and ICT modernisation. This statement is making the Committee accomplice to all the missed targets of the Department. The statement indicates that targets have been met, when in actual fact they have not been met.

Mr B Nkosi (ANC) suggested giving the Department an opportunity to provide a report that deals with the substantive issues within the recommendations. For example, on the regional integration strategy for the Southern African Development Community (SADC) on the promulgation of the Foreign Services Act and on the reporting on the Committee’s Chairpersonship of the African Union (AU) and of the President of the United Nations Security Council (UNSC). The Committee should give the Department a timeline for the delivery of these three things.

Other than that, the recommendations are comprehensive and give the Committee an indication of what will be seen in the third and fourth quarters. In the report it says that the Department of Public Service and Administration has granted the Department permission to move targets from one quarter to another. This should not happen at the expense of discarding targets. It is expected that in the third and fourth quarters, there should be a comprehensive report on whether the targets have been achieved or not. Quarterly reports are transient in nature, so it is not possible to have a definitive view on the first quarter. It is not possible to achieve anything in three months. But if the report is looked at with the view of “they are cumulative,” much must be achieved within a particular quarter. Then what becomes important for the Committee is to evaluate the Department against its performance per quarter, but in particular its fourth and final quarter.

The content advisor thanked the Chairperson and said that the Committee was having problems with the report because it had not dealt with the third and fourth quarters of the previous year yet, where the migration of SADPA and the promulgation of the Foreign Service Act were supposed to have happened. So, the Committee has a backlog. The Committee has already dealt with the Department’s Annual Performance Plan (APP) of this financial year. The Committee has already noted that the issues that emanated from the first and second quarters, which is what the Committee is dealing with today, have still not been achieved. Issues from the previous financial year have been carried over to this financial year. There is nothing in the APP of this year. There is no roadmap. This is what the Committee recommended in its Budget Vote report.

Through the Department of Planning, Monitoring and Evaluation’s (DPME) intervention, the Department was allowed to carry over some of its targets that were not met in a specified timeframe. Many of the major targets that the Committee expected to be achieved were not achieved. Even in the new APP those issues are pending. For the purposes of the first and second quarters, the migration and the Foreign Services Act were supposed to happen in the last quarter, but the processes that lead to the promulgation of the Foreign Services Act were supposed to have started in the first quarter. Also, the processes leading to migration of the ARF to SADPA was supposed to have started in the first quarter of last year. This is what the Committee report tried to capture. If Members feel it is not captured clearly, this can be amended. It is the first and second quarters only. The Committee is yet to deal with the third and fourth quarter of the previous financial year.

The recommendations from the first and second quarters have been clumped together. Some issues that were supposed to have been met in the first quarter were moved to the second quarter. The Committee dealt with it in transition in that manner so that is shows the continuity. But this can be revisited and the Committee can determine how best to recapture them.

The first paragraph of the recommendations refers to one month after adoption by the National Assembly. The Department has to respond to the Speaker and then to the Committee within one month. Would the Committee like to have each recommendation with its own timeframe or all of them be responded to within one month? She thanked the Chairperson.

Mr Nkosi suggested adding an 8.8 and 8.9 to the report, wherein the Committee should be able to warn the Department of the risk of not achieving major targets, irrespective of the fact that it had permission to move them. This provides the Committee with an opportunity to demonstrate that it is aware that the Department is moving targets, although with permission. So, when the APP is considered for 2021/2022, one could look back and justify why one has come to one’s conclusion for what the Department has not achieved in the past financial year. He thanked the Chairperson.

The acting Chairperson said there was a mover for the adoption of the report, with an addition of an 8.8.

Mr Mpanza seconded the adoption of the report. The Department has done some noticeable things when it comes to issues that have to do with the AU and the UNSC conflicts.

Ms Msane said that the EFF did not agree with the report.

Ms Zungu said she was not surprised that the EFF did not agree with the report.

The report was adopted.

The acting Chairperson handed the meeting back to Chairperson Mahambehlala.

The Chairperson asked the Committee Secretariat if there was anything else to discuss.

The Committee Secretariat said there was nothing else to discuss. The minutes would be carried over to the following week.

The Chairperson asked when the Committee was considering the oversight reports.

The Committee Secretariat said it could be clumped together with the Budget Vote report, with the Chairperson’s approval.

The Chairperson asked how big it was. She said she did not want the oversight report to be clumped with anything else because it is the most important report for the Committee to consider. Therefore, there must be a separate meeting dedicated to it only. These reports must be taken seriously, like the one was today. There needs to be enough time to consider and discuss matters.

The Committee Secretariat said he noted what the Chairperson said. He said that next week will be the Budget Vote report, so the oversight report will be the following week.

The Chairperson asked what date that would be.

The Committee Secretariat said it would be 25 May.

The Chairperson asked the Committee Members if that was fine with them.

The Committee Secretariat corrected that it would be 26 May.

The Chairperson asked the Committee Members if that was fine with them.

There was agreement.

The meeting was adjourned.

 

Documents

No related documents

Download as PDF

You can download this page as a PDF using your browser's print functionality. Click on the "Print" button below and select the "PDF" option under destinations/printers.

See detailed instructions for your browser here.

Share this page: