Western Cape Appropriation Bill: Office of Premier

Premier & Constitutional Matters (WCPP)

16 March 2022
Chairperson: Ms L Botha (DA)
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Meeting Summary

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Appropriation Bill

The Western Cape’s Committee on the Premier and Constitutional matters deliberated on and adopted the budget of the Office of the Premier, with the ANC expressing a minority view that opposed it.

The ANC questioned the department’s commitment to non-racialism and promotion of people disadvantaged by unfair discrimination, saying there was only one African in a senior management position.

Members asked about the province’s safety plan and its cooperation with municipalities in law enforcement initiatives. A particular concern was the emergence of gangs of youths extorting protection money from residents of townships. Officials told them there were 16 area-based teams in which different law enforcement agencies cooperated to assess and solve specific problems in those areas. 

Members sought reassurance about cyber-security. They were told that this had been stepped up as people working from home during the COVID-1 pandemic had increased the risk of hacking. They were also told of plans for a new roll-out of broadband and of plans to push access to wi-fi deeper into communities.

Other issues raised included support for emerging farmers, strategies for dealing with gender-based violence and sexual harassment and forensic investigations that were being conducted.

Meeting report

The Committee met on a virtual platform to deliberate on the budget appropriation for the Office of the Premier. The Chairperson welcomed those present and invited Members to put questions to the Premier of the Western Cape, Mr Alan Winde, and departmental officials. 

Mr C Dugmore (ANC) drew the attention of the officials to chapter 10 of the Western Cape Constitution, particularly clause 81 which amongst other things dealt with the promotion of non-racialism and promotion of persons disadvantaged by unfair discrimination. He asked the premier to point to anything in his department’s Annual Performance Plan (APP) or in provincial policy that advanced these principles. He asked if the Premier agreed that the senior management of the department from chief director and up should be generally representative of the people of the Western Cape. His understanding was that there was one African person in this category. Was this acceptable in the context of trying to build a prosperous society for all? Senior management was completely unrepresentative of the people of the Western Cape.

Premier Winde replied that both documents spoke about unfair discrimination and redress.  The focus was on job creation, dignity and wellbeing, safety, free wi-fi access and so on. This was about redress and dealing with discrimination citizens had felt and building towards a better future. There was a need for more Africans in the top management of the department. Government should not be judged year on year but over a period of time. The top management of the department would be different from what it looked like three years ago. What the Cabinet would be signing soon would be different from a disability and African point of view. The department had taken a conscious decision not to fill every vacancy. With budget constraints, government had to do more for less.

Dr Harry Malila, Director-General, Western Cape Department of the Premier, added the department had made another senior manager appointment in the differently-abled grouping. The department was looking at broadening representation in the department because diversity was key.

Mr G Brinkhuis (Al Jama-ah) asked if the department could confirm that there had been no security breaches in the Western Cape government or in any of the municipalities of the Western Cape. Cyber security was a pertinent matter all over the world.

Premier Winde said a lot of money had been spent on cyber security. There was a municipality that had successfully fought off an attack because it had systems in place. The systems and records of the government would not be held to ransom by cyber attacks. There was major data that needed to be protected.

Dr Malila stated the department would not go into details about cyber security because of the public nature of the meeting. The department had proper plans for cyber security. Risks were being monitored. A lot of investment had been made.

Mr Hilton Arendse, Deputy Director-General: e-Innovation, Department of the Premier, said it was known that cyber attacks would happen during the COVID-19 pandemic as most people would be working from home. That was why the department had decided to step up security to ensure hacks did not happen. Many interventions in cyber security had been made during the past 18 months. Detection systems were beefed up and monitored.

Mr P Marais (FF+) said there was not much that a person could criticise in the budget. His only concern was that reference was made only to HIV and COVID-19 in the budget. There was nothing on diabetes, whereas it had been reported that 50 percent of diabetics were undiagnosed. The City of Cape Town was the only city in South Africa that had joined a global partnership of healthy cities. He wanted to know if there was a special focus on diabetes in the budget. How much attention had been given to screening people for possible diabetes to ensure they received treatment before they were attacked by covid-19? Diabetes had many negatives.

Premier Winde stated that TB was the major issue in the province. He said he chaired the HIV Committee which had changed its name to the TB/HIV Committee because the two were intertwined. Know Your Tuberculosis campaigns were currently running, just like Know Your Status campaigns on HIV. People should also know their diabetes status. The work the health department had done locally around diabetes should be recognised globally.

Dr Malila said there was an integrated health and wellness programme across all departments.

Mr R Allen (DA) enquired if there were any plans in place to ensure vacancy rates across government were as low as possible. He also asked for clarity about a reference in the APP to ad hoc services in the budget for communications. He asked about contracts with municipalities other than the City of Cape Town on safety matters such as the Law Enforcement Advancement Programme (LEAP).

With regard to communications, an official from the department said they had throughout the years implemented demand planning. In the current environment, 75 percent of the allocation was for planned work while 25 percent was for unplanned eventualities.

Premier Winde said the legal team would make sure that the right contracts were concluded between the provincial and local governments, especially in new areas. More municipalities wanted to have agreements with the provincial government.

Dr Malila reported that most departments had vacancy rates lower than two percent.

Mr M Xego (EFF) asked if there was a policy in the Western Cape government to support emerging farmers with access to land. If there was such a policy, was the land available and how many emerging farmers had been assisted? He wanted to know why the Western Cape government was not providing agricultural land to emerging farmers.

Premier Winde replied that most of the questions were within the ambit of the Department of Agriculture. The national department of land reform could answer some of the questions. His department tried to look at the Constitution to find ways of pushing some boundaries. Land ownership was still a big problem, especially for black farmers. What the department could do with the budget it had, versus the policy at national level, was to lease the land. But those leases were not long enough, they took too long to put in place and most farmers failed before the lease was in the system.

Dr Malila suggested Mr Xego should go to the agriculture budget under Vote 11 of the Appropriation Bill. There was a specific programme dealing with producer services and black commercial farmers that were supported through the Comprehensive Agricultural Support Programme (CASP) and other grants. There was a sizeable budget of R275 million. Many activities were assisting black farmers to become real commercial farmers.

Mr Dugmore asked the Premier if he could name a single policy that promoted non-racialism and protected and advanced categories of people disadvantaged by unfair discrimination. The provincial constitution said the Western Cape government must adopt and implement these policies because this was a directive of a provincial policy. He read the premier an extract from the provincial constitution. He wanted to understand where in the APP there was a diagram that represented the entire senior management and plans to make it more representative. The DG had agreed the current representation was not satisfactory.

Premier Winde said all their policies promoted non-racialism.

Dr Malila said the APPs talked about interventions related to children, women, and disabilities. On a transversal basis, they followed the frameworks that related to gender-responsive budgeting and planning. The indicators talked of transversal human rights programmes. There was also a policy that dealt with employment equity and targeting. When it came to employing senior managers three things were considered: did it promote gender equality, did it promote employment equity, and did it promote issues around disability.

Ms M Maseko (DA) asked how interventions for children, women and disabilities were going to be filtered down to the local government level because the difference had to be seen there. She also wanted to understand how the department was going to be innovative when engaging the City of Cape Town in bringing in investors and promoting the SDG grant. The City of Cape Town had been returning this SDG grant.

Premier Winde said the government engaged with local government through the Premier's Coordinating Forum (PCF).  This was where various stakeholders like the SA Police Service, Eskom, the Public Service Commission, the Budget Policy Committee, and many others held discussions on identified matters. For example, an issue could be land invasions. Then, shortcomings would be identified and programmes developed. Lack of skills was a big challenge for local government. Municipalities were battling to find chief financial officers. An infrastructure department would be established soon. Questions were asked about whether the right skills would be available. Lack of infrastructure, especially in rural towns, made it difficult to bring in investors.

Dr Malila added that, as a Director-General, he interfaced with municipal managers on many issues.

Mr A Joemat, Director: Corporate Services, Department of the Premier, said the department was an enabler that provided the tools. Some of these tools came in the form of capabilities like data, while others came in the form of programmes. There were focus areas where they interacted with local government.

Mr Dugmore wanted to understand how the mission statement reflected the state of the province, seeing that the City of Cape Town was underspending on the poor and marginalised and rolling over budget in critical areas like education and human settlements. How did this compare with the mission of improved services in the Western Cape?

He asked if programme 4 of the budget was responsible for recruitment and training of provincial staff. What was the purpose of the consultants referred to? What services did the consultants provide? Were they former state employees? What was their HDI status? What were the terms for the appointment of these consultants and the duration of the contracts, and were the skills transferable to the Western Cape government itself?

He wanted to know whether the programme that dealt with corporate assurance was not overlapping with the department of health in terms of communicating on the COVID-19 pandemic.

Concerning allocations for the Centre for Innovation, city operations, service management, strategy and planning, ICT governance and broadband, he asked how much of this money would be spent on actual infrastructure and what was meant by the notion of ageing infrastructure. How much was being spent on broadband rollout, and how much of the broadband infrastructure was owned by the Western Cape government?

On demand and changes in services, particularly on the issue of provincial strategic management, he wanted to know what data-driven policy had been implemented, the impact it had and the costs associated with it, and how many consultants were employed to provide this input and at what cost.

On the programme for people management, particularly on demand planning, he wanted to understand what demand planning functions were, whether demand planning consultants employed permanent staff, how many unfilled vacancies had been filled by contractors, and how this affected the long-term performance of the department.

Referring to the expiration of the broadband contract in September 2024, he enquired why there were no stand-alone sites for public access to wi-fi. The information he had was that every wi-fi hotspot was linked to a government building. The sites should be within the community.

Regarding corporate services, he wanted to know how many forensic investigations had been conducted, what the outcomes of the investigations were, what had prompted the investigations and what had been investigated.

Premier Winde said the first question from Mr Dugmore was not fair. That question could not be incorporated into the mission statement. Relevant departments or local governments should be asked why they were not spending their budgets and about plans to spend that budget.

Dr Malila stated the current broadband contract would expire in October 2024. Thinking about broadband 2.0 had started already. He would be glad to make a presentation to the committee on the subject and on what had been achieved. The department had upped its game. Some of the sites were running at 1 gig per second. A decision had been taken 10 years ago not to procure any of the infrastructure. This was left to professionals, people who invested heavily in research and development. A service had been contracted via the State Information Technology Agency (SITA) and there had been many advantages in going that route. This model was being used in rolling out broadband in some parts of Gauteng, KZN and the Eastern Cape.

On consultants and contracts, Dr Malila said most of the services in programme 3 were demand-driven because they took responsibility for HR for all departments, except health and education. There was a good relationship between these two departments in ensuring that one agenda was pursued. He assured the Committee that there was no communication overlap between his department and the health department, particularly around COVID-19. There was proper alignment in all communication areas.
On forensic investigations, he said they would prefer to brief the committee outside of the meeting or send written information because of the public nature of the meeting. Some of the investigations were ongoing.

On the question of ageing infrastructure, Mr Arendse said they were replacing items that were seven to nine years old. An amount of R476 million was earmarked for broadband. The reason why there were no stand-alone wi-fi hotspot sites was because they wanted to ensure there was broadband in government buildings. Sites like clinics and schools within communities were where they tended to place the sites. In the new broadband phase, the department would look at how to get the service deeper into the community. The first phase of the broadband focused on connecting the sites to broadband, while the second phase would focus on services and requirements for government departments, municipalities and ordinary citizens. That is the intervention for broadband 2.0.

On consultants and contractors, Mr Joemat said the activities ranged from highly transactional services to high-level work for sister departments. For example, most departments had limited HR capacity, so they helped them to develop their own cost of employment plans within the transversal provincial policies. They further helped them to develop their departmental culture programmes. That was the internal consultancy service they provided. The department had capable people and good data analytics capabilities. Nothing was procured externally.

Ms Louise Esterhuyse, Chief Director for People Management Practices, Department of the Premier, said demand planning was done by their workforce planning team. The team went to the departments to determine their needs for the next financial year and then planned how to approach the work. Demand for services was related to data and evidence. An example was lessons learnt during COVID-19. The requirement was to understand the landscape of the data, improve the quality of the data and put standards in place for patient data records. There was a memorandum of understanding with all government departments on data sharing, there was a memorandum of agreement with the City of Cape Town, and municipalities were working with the legal services department to have the memorandums of agreement in place.

Dr Malila added that the department, two years ago, took a deliberate decision that everything should be data-led. People could check the Western Cape data portal on the government website. Everything done around COVID-19 was based on data.

Mr Xego asked what the plans of the department were regarding private housing developments happening closer to economic opportunities. What was the department doing to ensure these developments also provided affordable housing for the people of the Western Cape, in all towns of the province?

Premier Winde stated the department of planning and environmental affairs was the right place to ask about the social housing development policy. The policy had been developed already and addressed concerns raised by Mr Xego. It had a social housing development component. The department was trying to get the private sector involved in delivering social housing projects. Some of these development programmes were held up by illegal activities or land invasions.

Mr Dugmore remarked that his concern was about policy consistency in people management. He wanted to understand what the policy was on a provincial official facing criminal charges in a court of law. What did the provincial policy and people management policy say about this? Did the Office of the Premier conduct its own investigation into the matter in the department of transport that had to do with the official being charged in court?  He asked if confidential information could be provided to the committee. He further asked if there was a single policy in the provincial government that dealt with combating gender-based violence (GBV) and sexual harassment. If the policy existed, he asked that it be sent to the committee. If it did not, what is being done to develop it?

Dr Malila stated they had received a letter regarding the public transport department official. They would rather respond to the committee in the same manner they responded to the department of public works. Dealing with criminal charges and combatting GBV and sexual harassment were all part of the policy in place within the department. There had been a public commitment that it would be reviewed. The department would take lessons learnt from it and consult with outside institutions like NGOs and unions to ensure its policies were world-class. With policies like these, you learnt as you went along. That was why the policy was being reviewed and would be taken to the cabinet.

Ms Maseko wanted to know how the department aligned its sexual policy, if it had one, with the one used for labour matters.

Mr Allen enquired if data on interventions by the provincial data office regarding certain communities and profiles would be for Members’ and public consumption and what the staff complement of that office was. 

Dr Malila said the information was shared on a daily basis. None of those meetings were closed and that meant information went to the public as well. The first two years of establishing the data office were to ensure the governance arrangements were in place. They wanted to ensure that more information was put in the public domain so that communities could make their own analysis and understand what was happening in their lives when it came to legislation. The unit was not entirely capacitated because they did not want to flood it with people. The intention was to build it organically.

The Chairperson asked the DG to talk about the Time to Talk programmes.

Dr Malila said the department this year wanted to drive the issue of culture and values. One of the cultural shifts the department wanted to make was for public officials to listen more. Sometimes they had to think for the broader public. In each of the programmes there were service delivery visits. There was one site visit per quarter to listen to what people were saying and then decide on improvements.

Mr Dugmore asked what the operating hours of the hotspots were, given that they were in government buildings. Could people still get access to the wi-fi when that government facility had closed at 4.30? He asked what the current deal was with Neotel. Out of this R1.2billion budget, what amounts were going to the contractor, Liquidtel, and SITA this year?

Dr Malila indicated that Liquidtel was contracted to SITA. The department was paying for the connection of wi-fi spots and government connectivity. Those services were contractually bound.

Mr Arendse reported that the wi-fi spots operated for 24 hours. When complaints were received from citizens, hotspots that attracted a crowd and became rowdy were switched off at 5pm, or people were directed to another area. Sometimes older people became uncomfortable when they saw youngsters congregating near their homes at night. Installation and monthly costs were paid to Liquidtel, depending on the bandwidth. The rates for the different types of facilities were different. The total budget was R476 million for this year.

Mr Marais remarked that the proceedings were conducted in English only. He wanted to know if people were communicated to in Afrikaans during the outreach programmes.

Dr Malila said the contact centre that people could phone made use of three languages. Correspondence was responded to in the language of the request. The province tried to communicate with citizens in three languages.

Mr Dugmore expressed concern there was no indication of an allocation in the budget for an environmental commissioner. What was the reason for that? He further wanted to know if the Premier could take the committee into his confidence about his intended replacement of his special adviser, Mr Grant. At what level was Mr Grant appointed? He asked him to indicate to members, in terms of his communication with the department of public administration, at what level he intended to permanently employ the former MEC. Of the R18 million allocation for the Premier’s department, how much would go to salaries? He wanted to understand why there had been a drop in the outer years in the allocation for the Children's Commissioner. It was an independent institution. Why could it not be given its own budget instead of being given money by the department? 

Premier Winde said the budget for an environmental commissioner was not in the current budget because there was no legislation in place. Once legislation was in place, a budget would be made available. He said when a special adviser was put in place, the advice of the department of public service and administration had to be sought regarding the salary level. Maybe Mr Dugmore was talking about the possibility of Mr Bonginkosi Madikizela taking up that post? The documentation had been sent to the department. Once the determination had been made on the salary level, he would then meet the person and make an offer. He said other positions were determined by the provincial handbook. The details would be forwarded in writing about salary levels, permanent and contract positions, and vacancies.

Dr Malila said the initial allocation for the Children’s Commissioner had been made a year and a half ago. The main thing was to acquire a building and the requirements were different. The building had to be child-friendly. Efforts to get a better building were at an advanced stage. An amount of R3 million had been allocated for that. Money had been added to capacitate her office. The department should deal with her independence. Its independence regarding lines of reporting to parliament was given respect. For now, they were in the vote of the Department of the Premier. All the people employed by the Children’s Commissioner were public servants and relations between the commissioner and the DG had been good up to now. The position of the commissioner was independent and she reported to parliament.

Mr Allen asked what a reference to innovative initiatives entailed.

Dr Malila said the money was to drive the problem-driven iterative adaptation (PDIA) programme. Work was also being done under the VIP 5 programme. Money was also allocated for work done on data analytics. In the governance transformation space, work was being done on capacity to be built. The major focus was on staff and talent development and re-engineering the training institute.

Mr Marais wanted to know if people management was about promoting internal people or those walking in dead man’s shoes – those who had been in the department for a very long time. It appeared that posts were advertised externally and those who were in the department remained in the same positions. Would an assistant director be groomed to be a director, and then a director to become a chief director, and so on?

Ms Esterhuyse said the Public Service Act and regulations provided guidelines on how to recruit. They stated that all posts had to be advertised. If an internal person was interested in the post and was successful in applying for it, that person would be promoted.

Ms Maseko wanted to find out how capacity was retained given competition from the private sector. Many departments said they were grooming people for the private sector.

Ms Esterhuyse said salary was not the only way of retaining staff. Research showed that one’s supervisor influenced whether one stayed or not. The organisational culture had a bigger impact on retention in the workplace. The turnover rate in her department and others was not very high. If it was below 10 percent it was regarded as acceptable. There was a balance between getting in new people and current ones moving up.

The Chairperson enquired whether staff members volunteered to attend training at the training centre or whether they were identified for upskilling.

Ms Esterhuyse explained that there were two approaches. One was where development needed to be self-initiated so employees could determine their direction. At the same time, the employers could redirect them to the kind of training they needed to be promoted.

Mr Marais said the turnover rate was a good way of telling whether people were trained properly so that they could be promoted. What was the average time an employee remained at the same level over the past 15 to 20 years? If people were being upskilled, there was no reason for them to remain in the same position. He stated he would ask this question in Parliament.

Dr Malila said investment in staff was not meant for people to remain with the department for the rest of their lives. The department invested in the person. If the person decided to stay, then the department and citizens reaped the benefits. If the person moved on to greener pastures, then other institutions benefited. The idea behind giving out bursaries was to build the individual. People were encouraged to apply for higher positions. The department had recently talked about succession plans. He assured the committee that training and capacity building were taken seriously and the number of non-performers was less than two percent. Because of interventions, there had been a turnaround on the non-performers. They had to be made better instead of being shown the door.

Premier Winde added that it was not about seeing people staying in one position for two to three years and moving on. For instance, the DG had a five-year contract and he hoped it would be renewed because in a government system you did not want to see a high turnover, but a planned turnover. Government wanted to see people coming up, and they must prepare themselves. Most heads of department had not been around for long, except Mr Brent Walters. All of them had come through the system. There were also those who came from other provincial departments. You had to make a system that kept institutional knowledge and did not see a cohort of people retiring at the same time.

Mr Dugmore said that the safety plan did not appear to focus on the phenomenon in the townships of people being asked to pay youth gangs protection money to patrol the areas, whereas in the suburbs they paid security companies. The neighbourhood watches and police were no longer active. The youth gangs were calling the shots and extorting ordinary residents to keep houses and streets safe. He asked if the plan tried to address this because it was a recent phenomenon that had started in the past couple of years. He asked if the committee could be given updates or documents on court rulings every six months. He also indicated he could not find in the APP a graph or table that showed the gender, race, and class breakdown of disabled employees in the government. The Premier and the DG had noted the not so satisfactory matter about representation. It would have been good to see what the plans were to address these levels of representation in senior management of government departments.

Dr Malila said the table Mr Dugmore was talking about was not prescribed, but the department did provide such a table in its annual report because there was a section that dealt with HR. If the Committee wanted the figures, that could be easily done.

An official from the department said copies of the court rulings would be made available to the Committee. There was nothing to hide.

Another official stated that the Safety Plan was broken into three components: law enforcement, violence prevention, and urban design and safety. All of these components worked together to achieve a safe society. With regard to law enforcement, 16 area-based teams had been established and 11 of them were in high crime areas in the metro. These area-based teams had assessment units which comprised the SAPS, law enforcement officers from the City of Cape Town and officials from the province. They regularly got together and focused on identified problem areas. Extortion would be in the high-crime areas. They would assess what was happening in an area and come up with a strategy. One of the successes was in using data, especially from the health sector, to map out physical areas where violent crimes had been happening. A joint plan was developed for these areas. This meant that if
extortion in a particular area was a problem, it would be solved jointly in that particular forum. It had been found that most crimes occurred on Saturday nights and Sunday mornings. The number of law enforcement personnel would be increased at those times. The SAPS was developing a strategy for extortion. A summarised version would be sent to the Committee.

Mr Marais asked whether the department used a zero-based or add-on approach to budgeting. Did they just add on a certain percentage every year or did they consider afresh whether, for instance, how many people they needed to do the work? Referring to the e-innovation programme, he asked whether different departments' information systems spoke to one another and shared information about interwoven issues such as health and housing.

Dr Malila said the department did not follow a strict zero-based approach in budgeting, because it had fixed costs such as salaries and broadband contracts spread over several years. However, it had established a budget committee that considered all planned expenditures. A vacant post could not be filled before the committee had been consulted.  He said his department was responsible for ICT and he could assure Mr Marais that the information systems spoke to one another.

Mr Marais wanted to know what the police were being trained for because he was alarmed by the crime statistics. Serious crime recorded by the SAPS had risen. He wanted to know if training the metro police was putting them first in the queue to join the SAPS. He asked if it would be a good idea to train metro police so that they were able to join the SAPS when the time was right.

Dr Malila said what was being asked would be difficult in practice. People were trained by the SAPS in different colleges and their work conditions were different. What was important was that law enforcement agencies should have a common approach and agenda to address crime. The provincial finance minister, Mr David Maynier, had stated that he had allocated R4 million to LEAP officers. That was the investment they were making in addition to what the City of Cape Town was putting in. If you added what was spent on the SAPS and neighbourhood watches it ran to billions of rands. What was missing was a coherent approach by these law enforcement agencies. The safety plan, being the only one in the country, would pull a lot of these initiatives together and achieve a consistent drop in crime.

Premier Winde added that sometimes there are cases where SAPS officials applied for metro police positions. The metro police training was a comprehensive programme. Traffic officials, who had their own training programme, played a role as well. That was when the role of a designated peace officer came in. It was a question of a pipeline of skills.

Mr Dugmore wanted to understand the purpose of reporting provincial payments and estimates in the current format and how they arrived at the estimates. Also, he asked if the use of technical indicator descriptions in the APPs was a new innovation, or did they have another name before.

Dr Malila indicated the main purpose was to give more information and complement the tables in the front of the book. It was a management tool. On an annual basis, the department was improving its quality. The tables were part of the annexures and an indication of where money was going to be spent. The format of the tables was prescribed by National Treasury.

Mr Marais said he was looking at the budget of the metro and that of the Cape Winelands. Eighty percent of the population stayed in the metro. Was there a strategy to decentralise the metro and make sure the Cape Winelands were given more budget to develop so that people did not flock into the metro?

Dr Malila explained that it was difficult to control people’s movements. Human beings would go where there were economic opportunities for them and their children, anywhere in the country. There was a need to create further opportunities, but as this was done, people would come into the province. There was going to be a serious growth in population in the next ten years in the Western Cape and Gauteng.
Premier Winde added that United Nations reports stated that, currently, 50 percent of the citizens in the world lived in cities, but this would rise to 75 percent in the next 30 years. An unprecedented three million people moved to the cities every week all over the world. The COVID-19 pandemic had made it possible for people to work remotely. Those who used to come to the city were now moving to smaller towns because they could now work from home and not come to the city every day. The pandemic had pushed the fourth industrial revolution. People came to this province for opportunities.

The Chairperson thanked the delegation for allowing Members to pose questions and for responding to them diligently. The Committee would follow the money and see what happened in practice out there.

Premier Winde stated that responses owed to the Committee would be made in writing and documents would be made available. He thanked the Committee for allowing them to present their budget. He said they would continue to make lives better in the province.

Committee report on the Vote

The Chairperson informed Members that recommendations would be reflected in the minutes of the meeting, but not in the draft report.

She read the draft report and then tabled it.

She asked Members to vote on it.

Ms Maseko proposed that the Committee support the Vote and adopt the report.

Mr Allen seconded the proposition.

Mr Dugmore expressed the minority view that the ANC did not support the vote.

Resolutions

The Committee resolved that it would request the following:
A presentation from the department on cyber security as well as an update on broadband;
A summary of court cases and what prompted these investigations;
A copy of the policy on combatting GBV and sexual harassment;
A list of vacancies and advisors in the Premier’s Office and salary breakdown of the posts;
Updated tables that reflected representivity in the senior management of the department and vacancies that existed in senior management;
A list of the 16 areas for the area-based teams.

The meeting was adjourned.



 

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