Hon Chairperson, hon Minister and hon Deputy Minister, hon members, distinguished guests and the public at large, I too wish to take this opportunity to convey my sincerest sympathy to the family of the late hon Minister Padayachie on his unexpected passing; may his soul rest in peace.
When the department presented their strategic plan, it contained five strategic goals, supported by 17 objectives and a total of 72 targets. The committee was of the opinion that the strategic plan lacked focus and that, quite honestly, everything they wanted or needed to achieve was thrown into a pot and dished out as a strategic plan. The outcomes were not measureable, and considering past performance, we believe that the objectives and targets, particularly with regard to the current financial year, needed to be more focused and to comply with the Self-Monitoring, Analysis and Reporting Technology, SMART, principles as identified by the Auditor-General.
As a result of our comments, the department agreed to withdraw their strategic plan as tabled, to review their objectives and targets, and to resubmit a new strategic plan, which they subsequently did. This revised plan now consisted of the same five strategic goals, but now supported by 12 objectives and a manageable 34 targets, less than half of the previous number.
Unfortunately, two entities of the department had to do the same, not only because targets could not be measured, but because information in their presentations did not correspond with the information in the tabled strategic plans submitted, coupled with the discrepancies in the budgeted amounts.
This created a dilemma for us. We had a question before us: Do we consider and vote on the information in the document tabled in Parliament, or do we consider the revised information in a presentation that is meant to summarise the information in the strategic plan?
Sixty-six percent of the department's budget is allocated to Programme 4: Information Communication Technology, Enterprise Development, which consists of two subprogrammes, relating to public entity oversight and small, medium and micro enterprises, SMME development. As we are all aware, and as has been mentioned by the Minister and others, state-owned entities, SOEs, are the delivery arms of government. Therefore, stabilising SOE boards and monitoring and compliance are crucial to ensure that they deliver on their mandates.
The late Minister Padayachie, in his Budget Speech last year, said:
In our efforts to strengthen corporate governance within our public entities, work is under way to review and strengthen our capacity to conduct oversight.
Judging by the current status of the SOEs that report to this department, the hon Minister should have indicated that, with a few exceptions, mostly the smaller ones, they all qualified to be admitted, not to an ICT, but to an ICU unit, intensive care unit, last year.
The result is that these SOEs are in a state of transition with new board members and chief executive officers, CEOs, having been appointed or in the process of being appointed; all are busy with so-called turnaround strategies. In fact, hon Kekana said that if they are not careful with all these continuous turnaround strategies, they will find themselves at the point where they started.
I wish to comment briefly on some of the entities, starting with the SA Post Office, Sapo, which has again been left rudderless following the sudden resignation of the acting group CEO. This was confirmed yesterday, just days after the post was advertised. It also comes as Sapo is battling a strike by scores of contract workers, with very little, if any, communication to their clients who have not received post for the last four weeks or so in Gauteng.
Then there is the Postbank - the chairperson of our committee spoke about it as well. Its intention was to allow the SA Post Office through the Postbank to prioritise the banking needs of the unbanked majority, thereby facilitating their inclusion into the economic mainstream, through an Act that was signed into law in December 2010. This noble idea is meant to bring about reconciliation and redress to those who were denied economic participation in the past.
The licence application should be submitted by next month. However, this is unlikely to happen, as the application is sure to fail due to deficiencies in the current IT systems and processes. Even if this were to happen, the Postbank is doomed to failure because of a lack of funding. In July last year, it was estimated that R1,5 billion would be required over the Medium- Term Expenditure Framework, MTEF, period.
In January this year, the former chairperson of the board presented a revised estimate to the Minister of R2,15 billion, none of which can be funded by the SA Post Office, either through their own balance sheet or through loans. The SA Post Office is therefore looking to their sole shareholder, the government, for a capital injection, which is not budgeted for over the current MTEF period.
The second SOE I wish to comment on is the Independent Communications Authority of South Africa, Icasa. The successful attainment of Icasa's strategic goals will have far-reaching consequences for the ICT sector as a whole, and in particular to redress once again the results of the marginalisation of sections of our societies in the past. While the decision by Icasa to slash the costs of Telkom's IPConnect product by 30%, which became effective on 1 April, is most welcome, much work remains to achieve the unbundling of the local loop.
The cost of the IPConnect product is the single largest cost component faced by Internet service providers in providing choice to the end user for fixed-line Asymmetric Digital Subscriber Line, ADSL, services, and is expected to stimulate innovation and increase investment, thereby making it possible for a diverse section of our population to access this service. The next step is to ensure the implementation of a Bitstream product by the end of November this year.
The confusion surrounding the migration of digital terrestrial transmission, DTT, is reason for concern. While the Minister is on record as stating that the migration process is on track, and putting out full page advertisements to inform the public about DTT, the various entities responsible appear to be in the dark about this.
Earlier in my speech I quoted the late hon Minister Padayachie, who said: "Work is under way to review and strengthen our capacity to conduct oversight."
In the Minister's opening remarks to the committee, she said, "I have begun the process of ensuring that there is capacity within the department in policy development and in exercising our oversight role on the entities under our reporting line". This, Chairperson, is one year later, which just about sums up the current status. I thank you. [Applause.]