International Relations and Cooperation Portfolio Committee: Planned Meeting with South Sudan Delegation; Budgetary Review and Recommendation Report

Meeting report

The Chairperson read out the apologies from Ms C Dudley (ACDP), Mr T Sunduza (ANC), Mr B Holomisa (UDM) and Mr S Ngonyama (COPE) who were absent from the meeting.

Mr K Mubu (DA) voiced concern about the number of times Members were absent from meetings. This issue needed to be addressed as a matter of urgency.

The Chairperson assured Mr Mubu that the Committee refer to the Rules of Parliament for guidance and take concrete steps to address the matter.

Other Matters
The Chairperson informed Members that the South Sudanese Delegation had requested to meet the Committee on 5 November 2010. In addition, the Committee had received invitations from various other international delegations. It was important for the Committee to interact with anybody from Sudan because it was central to South Africa to achieve a peaceful settlement in that country.

Mr T Magama (ANC) asked if it was possible to arrange an alternative date because he was not sure he would be available on that day.

The Chairperson replied that he would not want to follow that route. Instead, he felt it was extremely important for the Committee to honour the date that had already been set aside. However, he assured Mr Magama that his proposal would be noted.

The Chairperson notified Members about a request by the Belgian Embassy, their Vice-Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs to meet with the Committee on 2 and 3 November 2010. The Committee was also expected to meet with a Palestinian delegation on 3 November 2010. He advised Members to diarise all these engagements.

Mr G Koornhof (ANC) enquired if the Committee could renegotiate the date of the meeting with the South Sudan Delegation. He also asked the Committee to consider meeting the Delegation from North Sudan in order to get a balanced view of the situation in that country.

The Chairperson agreed with Mr Koornhof, however he pointed out that the South Sudan Delegation had requested the meeting and not the Committee. Nevertheless, the Committee was willing to meet with any delegation from North Sudan.

Mr Koornhof sought clarity on whether North Sudan had an Embassy in South Africa, and if so, it would be ideal to invite them to be part of the meeting on November.

The Chairperson explained that there were dynamics which needed to be scrutinised when dealing with Sudan but Mr Koornhof was correct to ask for a balanced view.

Mr S Mokgalapa (DA) asked about the status of the African Union (AU) visit and voiced concern that the trip might be impacted due to the congested calendar.

The Chairperson assured Members that the AU visit had been approved and asked the Committee Secretary to verify the dates.

Ms Babalwa Ntshinga, Committee Secretary, informed Members that the Committee was due to leave on 19 November 2010 and return on 24 November 2010.

Outstanding Minutes
The Chairperson tabled two outstanding minutes for consideration. These were dated 1 and 8 September 2010. The former was approved with amendments and the latter without amendments.

Limpopo Oversight Report
Members corrected minor errors in the report. These included grammatical, dates, omissions and rewording.

Mr Mubu referred to page 6 and suggested that the sentence in the first paragraph dealing with the Councillor of the Capricorn District Municipality needed to be rephrased.

The committee adopted the report with amendments.

The Budgetary Review and Recommendations Report (BRRR)
Mr L Mosala, Content Advisor, Parliament, briefed the Committee on the spending trends of the Department of International Relations and Cooperation.

Mr M Mashaba, Researcher, Parliamentary Research Unit, highlighted that the Department had received a clean audit. The annual report of the Department would be included in the BRRR.

After listening to the brief analysis from the Research Unit, the Committee raised some serious objections concerning the report. Members complained that the report was not clear, it was vague and lot of work needed to be done to it. There were also general statements in the report that Members as politicians could find difficult to substantiate. There were a lot of technical layouts in the report which needed to be improved. In terms of observations and Recommendations, the Committee stressed that they should form the body part of the report not its conclusion, but nevertheless they thanked the Research Unit for their hard work and dedication.

The Chairperson advised Members to put their recommendations in writing so as to allow the researchers enough time to redraft the report.

The Committee resolved to send back the report to be redrafted by Research Unit.

The meeting was adjourned.