The question relates to the compliance with the norms of the Employment Equity Act by state-owned enterprises. I am advised that each of the state-owned enterprises has a shareholder compact with the Department of Public Enterprises. One of the performance criteria set out in there would be compliance with the requirements of the Employment Equity Act.
I am also advised that an independent check of this is available through the Department of Labour because the state-owned enterprises have to report in terms of the employment equity plans on an annual basis. So, there is a high level of compliance. The Department of Public Enterprises also secures from the state-owned enterprises a report to it quarterly on their performance in terms of the Employment Equity Act.
Madam Deputy Speaker, I also want to thank the Minister for his response to that question. Could the hon Minister further tell the House what punitive measures will be imposed on those SOEs that do not comply with this Act? What is the percentage of the physically challenged persons currently employed by the department?
Deputy Speaker, I don't know what the answer to the second part of the question is. I think it is important that we understand that the norms of the Employment Equity Act are not optional. They must be complied with and the compliance involves moving the power from the shareholder compacts to the Department of Labour and that is where the enforcement happens.
I am pretty sure that all of the state-owned enterprises also have boards that oversee this and there would be reports on the instances contained in the annual reports of each of the state-owned enterprises. So, the targets will vary - some of them are more dependent on high-level, scarce skills. But all of the facts are readily available from the independent annual reports.
Agb Adjunkspeaker, as 'n mens in aanmerking neem, Minister Manuel, hoe swak sekere openbare ondernemings presteer, veral Denel, Alexcor en die Suid-Afrikaanse Lugdiens, dan weet ek nie of die situasie van hierdie openbare ondernemings noodwendig sal verander - of daar nou voldoen word aan die Wet op Gelyke Indiensneming of nie.
My opmerking aan u, Minister, is dat die SAL, byvoorbeeld, as 'n openbare onderneming, nou 2 232 personeellede wil afdank en ander personeel se voordele wil verminder. Daar is reeds kritiek in die openbaar uitgespreek dat SAL-bestuur met sy uitvoerende hoof, mnr Ngqula, wat R5 miljoen per jaar verdien, 'n uiters swak onderhandelingsproses volg met personeel en dat vakbonde dreig met 'n staking soos in 2005, wat die SAL nou tot 'n val kan bring.
My vraag aan u, Minister, is: Word wette wat op personeel van toepassing is net gehandhaaf wanneer dit die departement pas, terwyl dit in ander gevalle, soos nou met die afdankings om 'n openbare onderneming van finansile ondergang te red, gegnoreer word? Daar sal ook gestremdes, sekerlik, onder hierdie 2 232 afdankings wees. Dankie. (Translation of Afrikaans paragraphs follows.)
[Dr S M VAN DYK: Hon Deputy Speaker, if one takes into account, Minister Manuel, how poorly certain public enterprises are performing, especially Denel, Alexcor and South African Airways, then I don't know if the situation of these public enterprises will necessarily change - whether there is compliance with the Employment Equity Act or not.
My observation to you, Minister, is that SAA, for instance, as a public enterprise, now wants to retrench 2 232 staff members, while reducing the benefits of others. Criticism has already been expressed in public that SAA management, with its chief executive, Mr Ngqula, who earns R5 million per year, is following a very poor negotiation procedure with staff, and that trade unions are threatening to go on strike, as they did in 2005, which could now be SAA's downfall.
My question to you, Minister, is this: Are laws relating to staff only complied with when it suits the department, whereas in other cases, such as now, with retrenchments in order to save a public enterprise from financial ruin, these laws are ignored? There must surely be people with disabilities among these 2 232 retrenchments. Thank you.]
Deputy Speaker, I am not sure if that is a follow-up question, but I will leave it to your judgment. Let me restate, for the hon Van Dyk, the fact that the norms of the Employment Equity Act, which is a piece of legislation from this House, are not optional. They must be complied with. It is very important that we don't suggest in this House that state-owned enterprises be spared or that we must have different norms. If we can't meet the criteria set out in the Employment Equity Act then I think it is important that such enterprises should report to Parliament for their omissions. That is how the system should work.
In respect of the restructuring by norms - and there are comparatives available across the world - South African Airways is personnel-heavy and you can measure these personnel per aircraft. You can look at management - and you can look at it in any part of the structure - these are issues that have to be dealt with.
Nowhere in the world do people raise their hands and say that they would like to be dismissed or that they are working because they are just trying to fill the time. People are not easily separated from their places of employment. These are always difficult negotiations. There are going to be two sides of the story.
I am not directly involved as a line function but I have seen that the general manager for human resources at SAA has written pieces that have been placed in a number of newspapers. They have taken adverts and placed them in newspapers. When I fly, staff members talk to me about these issues. They have concerns but I have the sense that there is much better communication than pessimists would have us believe.
Strategies to keep maize affordable and available
312. Ms J L Fubbs (ANC) asked the Minister for Agriculture and Land Affairs:
What strategies have been developed to ensure that maize as a staple food continues to remain affordable and available in sufficient quantities? NO2091E
Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker, for the question as well. Every evening my daughter checks the prices for me. Yesterday, sunflower oil was R3 400 and something per ton. Wheat is the one that is getting out of hand at, I would say, R3 100 per ton. Interestingly, a few months ago, the maize price rose over R1 900 per ton. Yesterday evening, it was reported as R1 550. At Pick 'n Pay you pay R24,50 for 5kg of maize meal.
What I would ask in answering this question is that you must distinguish between sufficient food being available and the price of the food. Until now, I think the market has been responsible in ensuring that there is sufficient food available in the country for all our people, but there has been a sharp food price increase. We have the quantities of food available even by importing, like wheat, for example. The Free State didn't have any harvest for about two years and it is producing more than both regions of the Western Cape. Wheat is actually the problem at the moment.
The free market was basically responsible, as the Food Price Monitoring Committee has indicated, for a 0,7% decrease in real food prices for the period from June 2003 to July 2006.
What is different from 2002 when maize prices went over R2 000 a ton, is that our social security has dramatically changed, both in the monetary value thereof as well as in the number of beneficiaries. That is why the Minister of Finance has previously indicated that the government was not planning to interfere in food pricing.
If you think, for example, of bread prices, hypothetically, if you take away something from the price of brown bread so that brown bread is more readily available than white bread at a lower price, your retail markets will just put up the price of brown bread until it's almost just under the price of white bread, and they will take what could have been VAT. That is simply what happens if you interfere with the food prices. But our social security plans and programmes must be checked regularly to see whether we have to increase that, or whether we should have food price increases. For example, as we did once before for a limited period, we could use food parcels for target communities.
The conclusion is that the market is responsible for the availability of maize and it has performed rather well over the last 10 years. [Time expired.]
Thank you, Deputy Speaker and thank you to the hon Deputy Minister as well. I must say that you and I share two things: My grandson went shopping for me and unfortunately he can't reach properly, or as high as your daughter. He was looking at the lower shelves, but that's by the bye.
I do, of course, study and enjoy the agricultural magazines and so on, but that again is something else.
When you go out ... [Interjections.] ... and the question is coming and thank you, you are not the speaker yet! [Laughter.] What I want to ask is this - the question is a very simple one, and the concern remains that maize is one of our staple foods and there is definitely a trend among the commercial farmers to recognise that shifting their maize into biofuels will generate them greater revenue. My concern for the people of our country, who are mostly poor and in the low-income group in the rural areas ... [Interjections.]
We don't have time for your concern, but we have time for your earlier question, which the Deputy Minister did not answer and your follow-up question was also not related to your initial question. So, Deputy Minister will you please give us the department's strategies to make sure that maize remains protected.
Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. That was correctly said. The strategy is basically to keep the market responsible for the sufficiency of food, but not to interfere with the pricing of maize. That is the strategy at the moment and then your backup strategy is social security plans when people can't afford the basic foods.
But, maize is more than just maize meal. It is like gold used to be in the old days for the economy as a whole. It is the basis of food pricing in South Africa. Marvellous things are thus produced from maize in general, but it gives the trend for the whole food pricing market. So you have to watch it all the time, but interference will not - I strongly believe - give the results that you will have. You must give the assistance for food security in another way, otherwise, you are going to get scarcity of production.
At the moment a lot of emerging farmers in maize farming and cattle farming depend on maize farming, especially yellow maize. We have seen that if the price goes too low for them, like we experienced with meat, emerging farmers would suddenly start to sell cattle on a far larger scale than previously, because the price of meat was going up. We must get that balance and keep in our minds that emerging farmers must eventually, if we reach figures of over 30%, be able to make a living, otherwise no one would want to go into farming, and certainly not maize farming. But maize farming is the basis in the sense that our whole meat industry is, for example, dependent on that. At the moment I am worried about the rain in the Free State because that's where the majority of wheat is being produced. Thank you.
Dankie, Voorsitter. Adjunkminister, ek stem basies saam met wat u s oor inmenging in die hele ketting, maar daar s sekere strategie wat gevolg kan word. As 'n mens kyk na wat die WHO-ooreenkomste is wat ons het en wat oor die wreld geld, kan ons 'n bietjie hor tariewe hef. Die graanboere het verlede jaar vir daardie hor tariewe gevra, maar ongelukkig het die landboudepartement hulle nie gesteun nie, en dit is my vraag: Moet ons nie daardie roete volg nie, want dan sal die boere meer produseer omdat hulle sekerder is van 'n sekere prys? Moet die landboudepartement nie voortgaan en praat met hulle kollegas in Handel en Nywerheid sodat daardie tariewe 'n bietjie nader kan kom aan waarvoor die graanboere vra nie? Baie dankie. (Translation of Afrikaans paragraph follows.)
[Mr A H NEL: Thank you, Chairperson. Deputy Minister, I basically agree with what you are saying about interference in the whole chain, but there are certain strategies that can be followed. If one looks at what the WTO agreements are that we have and that are valid all over the world, we can impose somewhat higher tariffs. The wheat farmers requested those higher tariffs last year, but unfortunately the Department of Agriculture did not support them, and this is my question: Is that not the route that we should take, because then the farmers will produce more, since they are more assured of a certain price? Should the Department of Agriculture not go ahead and talk to their colleagues in Trade and Industry, so that these tariffs can be brought closer to what the wheat farmers are asking for? Thank you.]
No, the DTI recently investigated the pricing with regard to maize and there was also an investigation into wheat, which only had a low tariff, but in maize the tariff model was investigated. It was, in the end, found that it is functioning well at the moment and ensures that when domestic prices are high there is no tariff on maize imports. It is only when domestic prices are going the other way that your tariff kicks in. I think that is working well; in wheat we want more engagement from the side of agriculture in the tariff process, and we are sure we are getting there. Thank you.
Financial misconduct at national level
329. Mr A H Nel (DA) asked the Minister for Agriculture and Land Affairs:
With reference to the Report of the Public Service Commission on Financial Misconduct for 2005-06 which reveals that the Department of Land Affairs were responsible for R20 million of the R30,6 million financial misconduct at national level, (a) how did this financial misconduct occur, (b) who was responsible for this misconduct and (c) why has none of this amount been recovered to date?