International Relations and Cooperation BRRR

Meeting report

The Chairperson said the Budgetary Review and Recommendations Report (BRRR) had been completed, and it included all the issues raised by Members. The Minister would not be able to attend the follow-up meeting to answer what had been raised in the report, so the Committee could either have the meeting without the Minister and only with the Acting Director-General (DG), or the meeting could be postponed and convened next year. Having an in-person meeting was not going to be possible this year, as all committees still need to have their meetings via Zoom.

Mr D Bergman (DA) said it was important for the Minister to attend the meeting, but postponing it should not be an option. He suggested that a meeting should be convened on Zoom, and the two Deputy Ministers of the Department of International Relations and Cooperation (DIRCO) and the Acting DG must be present to account.

He said DIRCO had not released a statement of condolences after the death of Eliyahu Kay, a South African who had been killed in Israel.

The Chairperson said condolences would be send to the family on behalf of the Portfolio Committee. He asked Members what they thought of Mr Bergman’s request to have the meeting with the Deputy Ministers and the Acting DG.

Mr M Chetty (DA) agreed with Mr Bergman’s proposal. Due to its importance and time constraints, the Committee needed to deal with this matter as soon as possible. The meeting could be convened via Zoom, and he did not mind the Deputy Ministers being involved, but he would have preferred the Minister being present in the meeting. His only concern with the Deputy Ministers was that in previous instances when the Committee had asked them difficult questions, they had opted out and said they would revert to the Minister and or say they will get back to the Committee.

Mr X Nqola (ANC) agreed with what had been said -- these matters had to be concluded as soon as possible. He asked whether it was possible for the Committee to liaise with the Minister find out on which dates she was available and let Members know of her availability. He said the Deputy Ministers should be the last resort. The Committee should try its best to have the meeting with the Minister.

Mr G Hendricks (Al Jama-ah) agreed with what the Members had said. It was important that the Minister attend the meeting. He knew the Minister, and she was not afraid to answer any question. It would be good to try and have the meeting in person.

Mr T Mpanza (ANC) agreed, and said although it was important to have this meeting, the Committee should not make the same mistakes other Committees had made. The Chairperson and the Minister should liaise about availability and a suitable location where the meeting could take place. He suggested that maybe the Committee also needed to liaise with the Chairperson of the Standing Committee on Public Accounts (SCOPA) to discuss some of the issues.

The Chairperson said he met with the Chairperson of SCOPA, and had told him that this Committee might want to have a meeting with SCOPA. There would be no problem in having a meeting with the SCOPA Chairperson.

He asked the Committee Content Advisor to present the report, and said she must focus only on the recommendations.

Ms Lineo Mosala, Committee Content Advisor, took Members through the recommendations contained in the report.

Portfolio Committee on International Relations and Cooperation Budgetary Review and Recommendation Report 2020/2021

Recommendations

Ms Mosala presented the following recommendations:

1. Maintain the standard of unqualified opinion on performance reporting, and apply the strategies used to improve financial reporting.

2. Expedite the forensic investigation into the unexplained transactions totaling R73 million on the disallowance account, and report to the Committee on the findings, recommendations and implementation thereof.

3. Show what steps were being taken as the remedial action for the root causes of negative audit outcomes for the Department, and report quarterly on the progress thereof.

4. Finalise and implement the audit action plan timeously to address both recurring and new audit findings, especially with reference to compliance with legislation.

5. Ensure that the internal audit unit, together with the audit committee, review the audit action plan to ensure that root causes were properly identified, and that it was adequate to address findings.

6. Investigate all reported unwanted expenditure (irregular, as well as fruitless and wasteful) for the 2017/18, 2018/19 and 2019/20 financial years, and report on progress thereof quarterly. Consider possible investigation on former Ministers and DGs for irregular expenditure, based on the related report.

7. Ensure that record management was enhanced to prevent repeat limitation findings.

8. Maintain basic financial discipline of preparing and performing detailed reviews of monthly reconciliations.

9. Consider approaching the National Treasury to assist in the conduct of a thorough competency assessment of the financial management function in particular, as well as provide support to the identified skills deficiencies in the finance branch in general.

10. Ensure that suitably qualified accountants, including personnel accredited by the Institute of Chartered Accountants, were recruited in near future.

11. Expedite a review of the organisational structure to, among others, separate the finance branch from property management and all other non-financial units.

12. Terminate all expired contracts with service providers, and report to the Committee on a quarterly basis of the progress thereof.

13. Ensure that a culture of consequence management was cultivated and maintained in the Department.

14. Review the policy for the posting of administrative officials abroad, as some of the Corporate Service Managers (CSMs) did not have a formal finance background, training and experience.

15. Ensure that heads of line function branches (Deputy Directors-General) work closely with the heads of missions and corporate service managers to deal with the recurring root causes for repeat findings in their respective missions.

16. Fast-track the procurement of laptops, desk tops and computers, and finalise all other related processes, to facilitate the implementation of digital transformation.

17. Prioritise the finalisation of processes for the required regulations, codes and directives for the full implementation of the Foreign Service Act 2019.

18. Conduct an impact assessment on the work of the African Renaissance Fund (ARF), with details of how the disbursement of funds from the ARF contributes to South Africa’s development cooperation agenda.

19. Prioritise the processing of the Partnership Fund for Development Bill, and stipulate timeframes, to facilitate the migration from the ARF to the South African Development Partnership Agency (SADPA).

20. Ensure that all the outstanding reports due to the Committee were finalised and presented within 60 days.

The Chairperson asked if the wording could be changed to "possible investigation of the former Ministers, based on the report by the Minister." He also asked if the recommendation about previous Ministers of International relations and Cooperation and their Director-General’s being investigated, should be the first recommendation.

Mr W Faber (DA) said “as per the report” should be added to Recommendation 1.

The Chairperson said that with regard to recommendation 10 on the skills audit, he thought it would be on people posted at the missions.

Ms T Msane (EFF) said there was another recommendation that referred to skills, and asked the content advisor to bring that comment up again. The recommendation was that all posts at missions should be audited, and if they were found not to have skills, they must be moved back to South Africa.

The Chairperson said he was not sure if this had been done in the past -- looking at ambassadors' skills -- and thought the focus would be on the bureaucrats.

Mr Bergman agreed with what Ms Msane said. The appointment of heads of missions was now covered by the Foreign Service Bill. Hairdressers used to be appointed as heads of missions, and they could not manage the staff or do their job.

The Chairperson said this would be a capacity problem. Someone could have qualifications and still not have the capacity to deliver.

Mr Chetty said the Chairperson's assumption was correct, and that was the assumption most Committee Members had. The aim was to see whether people who had been appointed as ambassadors had the correct qualifications or experience for that type of job. The Committee had, however, experienced the opposite, where people did not have the qualifications or experience to be a head of mission.

Mr Mpanza said he agreed that a skills audit should be done on everyone in all the portfolios DIRCO had overseas. The only problem was that there would be issues around recalling people, and it might not be within the Committee ‘s oversight powers to do so. The recommendation should just deal with auditing the skills, rather than calling for people to be recalled.

Mr B Nkosi (ANC) agreed with Mr Mpanza. A skills audit should be done, because even political appointments could not be done through the back door. Everyone appointed should be able to meet the minimum requirements. The Committee should consider having a structured discussion on political appointments. He added that DIRCO also had not legalised the Foreign Service Bill.

The Chairperson said regulations for the Foreign Service Act had not been finalised, so it was not legal yet. What the Committee could do was ask the Department to confirm or provide it with a report that said everyone had been appointed in line with the Foreign Service Act. It was only when the Committee was doing oversight visits and found out that someone had been appointed contrary to what was stipulated in the Foreign Service Act that these mattes could be dealt with on a case-to-case basis.

Ms B Swarts (ANC) said questions had been asked about DIRCO staff members who would leave South Africa to work at a mission, and when they returned they would be promoted to other positions for which they did not necessarily have the skills. This was a serious concern that had been raised when the Committee had oversight visits, and she asked if this comment had been included.

The Chairperson said the Committee must get a report on the skills audit on officials at DIRCO in South Africa and foreign missions, and get an assurance from the Department that everyone else who was a diplomat was appointed by the President and was in line with the Foreign Service Act.

Ms Swarts asked if it would be worthwhile for the Committee to look at the appointments of head of missions, which were made by the President. The focus should be on officials being placed without having the relevant skills. Heads of missions were political appointments, and there were acts that governed it.

The Chairperson said the report would focus on all officials except diplomats -- there would be a separate report on this. There was an agreement that there should be only 21 recommendations. He asked for adoption of the report.

Ms Msane said she had raised the wording in recommendation 14 in relation to recommendation 10. Members had requested recommendation 14 to be rephrased to say, “Skills audit should be done for everyone posted abroad and should there be findings that people that were posted abroad were incompetent and not qualified for the work they have been posted for, it should be allowed that they return home and qualified people be posted to go for that work.”

The Chairperson said the Minister would have to do consequence management, based on the findings of the skills audit. The Committee expected DIRCO to act according to the law. This point was covered without specifically saying people needed to be terminated. He asked for the report to be adopted

Mr Mpanza said this issue had been dealt with. The Committee agreed there would be a report which would inform the Committee about the skills, and once this had been received the Committee would have further discussions. The Committee could not interfere with the President’s prerogative to appoint diplomats.

Ms Msane asked the Committee to record the EFF’s objection to the report.

Mr Chetty said the DA reserved its rights on this report.

The report was adopted.

The meeting was adjourned.