Committee Minutes

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International Relations

31 May 2017
Chairperson: Mr M Masango (ANC)
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Meeting Summary

The Portfolio Committee met for the consideration and adoption of Draft Committee Minutes.

The Committee briefly discussed announcements that were made by the Chairperson.

The Committee adopted 13 sets of outstanding Committee minutes.

Meeting report

Announcements
The Chairperson said two issues needed the attention of the Committee before dealing with the agenda of the meeting, which was consideration and adoption of draft Committee minutes.

Firstly, the Department was invited to present on the Joint Economic Commission. Members woud recall that they did the same thing with Britain and the USA. Unfortunately, there was a very disappointing response from the Department of International Relations and Cooperation (DIRCO), which indicated that the department best placed in this regard is the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI), and DIRCO is not participating in this Commission. But the understanding of the Committee is that they have international relations with the countries they interact with and have rights in terms of their diplomatic relations, political relations and trade relations. His view was that it was DIRCO which must come before the Committee as per invitation hence this information has come before the Committee.

Members must decide whether they should invite the DTI to come and make a presentation to the Committee, and also write back to DIRCO to come and be part of the discussions.

Mr S Mokgalapa (DA) asked since when did the Department give such a lame excuse because DIRCO knew that they interact with it on such issues. Their excuse was unacceptable because they cannot say this was the domain of the DTI because they interact with the DIRCO in many by-lateral discussions. The Department must come and present that overview next week.

Ms S Kalyan (DA) said they should also check their planning because they were just notified of this issue this week. She has always asked for the calendar of their programme so that these issues could be tackled immediately. The excuse from the Department cannot be accepted because it was informed about these issues in time, which means they should in time prepare and come and report to the Committee. If the Department fails to come before the Committee next week they should take the matter up with the leader of political business of Parliament.

Ms H Hlophe (EFF) agreed with Ms Kalyan that their planning was not up to standard. They need to plan very well as a Committee because there are issues the Committee needs to be informed about from the Department. The Committee should not be informed of the Department’s issues through newspapers. The point was that there are a number of issues the Department needs to clarify with the Committee.

Mr B Radebe (ANC) said it was regrettable that the Department gave such response to the Chairperson. DIRCO has people working 24 hours monitoring the activities of the world in terms of what might happen. So, it was not an excuse to say this issue is another department’s mandate because they are getting paid to do the work they are doing. Therefore, the Department should come before the Committee next week and report on this matter. And if they need assistance from DTI it is their problem and should discuss that with DTI.

Secondly, it would be premature to take this issue to the leadership of political business of Parliament as Ms Kalyan has suggested. They should rather wait for all their processes in terms of inviting the Department to come next week. Furthermore, the Committee will be undermining the Ministry if it jumps this matter and reports this matter to political business of Parliament.

The Chairperson said he had requested the Committee Secretary to distribute the Committee programme, although it was still a draft, so that Members may familiarise themselves with it.

The Committee will invite the Department to come next week and present, as requested before.

The Chairperson said the second matter he wanted to inform Members was about the study tour. He was informed by the House Chairperson that they would not leave the country to travel to Germany on 17 June 2017 because on 22 June 2017 the President will be answering questions in the House, and therefore it will be difficult to release them. But other dates that were scheduled by the Office of the House Chairperson; which include 29 July – 5 August. Those are the new dates for their study tour.


Adoption of Minutes
The Chairperson read through the minutes page by page.

The Committee considered and adopted minutes of 25 November 2016, 30 November 2016, 25 January 2017, 15 February 2017, 22 February 2017, 01 March 2017, 08 March 2017, 15 March 2017, 22 March 2017, 29 March 2017, 03 May 2017, 10 May 2017; and 17 May 2017.

Members effected grammatical changes to the Draft Committee Minutes. No substantive changes were made.

The Draft Committee Minutes were adopted as amended.

The meeting was adjourned.


 

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