Adoption of Minutes and Consideration of Committee’s Annual Report 2005

Meeting report

HOUSING PORTFOLIO COMMITTEE
9 November 2005
ADOPTION OF MINUTES AND CONSIDERATION OF COMMITTEE’S ANNUAL REPORT 2005

Chairperson: Ms Z Kota-Fredericks (ANC)

Documents handed out:
Minutes of the Meeting of the Portfolio Committee on Housing held on 26 October 2005;
Portfolio Committee on Housing Draft Annual Report, January – December 2005 [please email [email protected]]

SUMMARY
The Committee adopted the minutes of their meeting on 26 October 2005 with minor technical amendments.

The Committee pointed to matters that were omitted from the draft report but had to be included. They asked that the last three figures of the budget be looked at again.

MINUTES
The Chairperson said she had asked Parliament if the Committee could go to Hout Bay, where an Irish businessman had gotten 700 volunteers to build houses at no charge, but Parliament had not given permission for the visit. The Chairperson had gone of her own accord. She said it would be proper for the Committee to assist people doing these kinds of projects, especially if they were from the international community.

Adoption of Minutes
The Committee adopted the minutes of their meeting on 26 October 2005 with minor technical amendments.

Mr A Steyn (DA) asked how the Committee was going to approach their meeting with the Department of Housing. He asked if they were going to send them questions before the meeting. The Chairperson said that when the Department had come to their earlier meeting, the Committee had only received their Annual Report on the same day as the meeting, which meant the Committee was not been able to engage with them properly. Therefore the Department had to come back to the Committee.

Consideration of Committee’s Annual Report, January to December 2005
The Chairperson’s visit to George had to be reflected in the report.

Mr B Dhlamini (IFP) asked for an update on their budget. He thought a sponsor would have paid for the Committee’s visit to the Netherlands. The Chairperson said Parliament had refused the sponsorship and had paid for the visit themselves.

Mr Steyn asked that the Committee’s visit to Soweto be reflected in the report.

Mr Steyn said it seemed funny that the last three figures in the budget were identical. The Chairperson agreed that the figures were wrong. She said the figures would be looked at. The total amount had to be reflected.

Mr Steyn said a report should be made available to the Committee when a delegation went on a visit. Such reports were outstanding on the conference in Durban and the Housing Summit in Mafikeng. The Chairperson said it was difficult to have reports if the secretary did not go along on the visits, but it was important to have reports, even if it was only a page.

The Committee provided the following issues to be included in the Outstanding Matters section of the Report: the Annual Report of the Department of Housing, the absence of a report on the N2 Gateway project, visits to the Northern Cape, North West, Limpopo and Mpumalanga, and a meeting with the Member of the Executive Council of KwaZulu-Natal.

The meeting was adjourned.