DPME, NYDA, Stats SA & DPSA Quarter 2 performance; with Deputy Minister

Meeting report

National Youth Development Agency (NYDA)

Mr Waseem Carrim, Acting Chief Executive Officer; NYDA, said that the presentation was on the National Youth Development Agency’s performance and financial information for the second quarter of the 2017/2018 financial year. He said that the Agency achieved 65% of its year to date targets and assured the Committee that the Agency would implement strict performance measures and consequence management against executives and officials who did not achieve targets. These measures stemmed from the NYDA's performance management policy. NYDA's spent 46% of its annual budget and spent 95% of its half year budget. The Acting CEO said that the NYDA submitted a business case for additional funding through the Medium-Term Expenditure Committee process. However, the NYDA's preliminary allocation did not change for the 2017 to 2018 financial year and the Agency would continue to lobby for funding through Cabinet processes prior to the allocation in December.

Mr Carrim informed the Committee that the former Chief Executive Officer, Mr Ramukumba took the decision to step down in October 2017. The Board of Directors named the Chief Financial Officer, Mr Carrim as the Acting CEO for a period of four months during the transitional period until a permanent Chief Executive was identified and appointed.

He said that the National Youth Service Coordination Framework was approved by Cabinet in October 2017, and established the NYDA as the National Coordinator of the programme. The Agency crafted four strategies to ensure the implementation of the National Youth Service (NYS):

1. Liaise with Cabinet Secretary on recommendations made on the approved framework.
2. To propose preferential funding models for the implementation of the programme across government.
3. To work with task teams from the Department of Planning, Monitoring and Evaluation on future implementation on NYS.
4. To hold meetings with public finance for funding the implementation process,

He said that key challenges affecting youth included a 60.2% unemployment rate and 59.4% of young people being without Grade 12.

He said that the first strategic objective of this programme (Economic Participation) was to enhance the participation of young people in the economy. The NYDA exceeded the quarterly target for “number of youth owned enterprises created through Business Development Support Services" and achieved a year to date target of 384 out of 500. He said that there were 211 grants going through a quality control process and would later be dispersed to youth entrepreneurs.

He said that the second indicator, “number of beneficiaries supported with key fundamentals for success" focused on training and market linkages. The Agency changed its training methodology as young entrepreneurs receive training over a period of five days rather one. The Agency changed its training material from the Small Enterprise Development Agency to International Organisation of Labour. He said that the change resulted in the Agency lagging behind in its quarterly targets, as it achieved 4 208 out of 5 000. The Agency was determined to achieve the remaining targets during November and December.

Mr Carrim said that the third indicator "number of jobs created and sustained through supporting entrepreneurs and enterprises", was reflective of the number of grants the Agency provided and how many businesses its supported. The Agency was close to achieving its quarterly target as it achieved 1 764 out of its 1 800. The Agency exceeded its target for number of jobs facilitated through placements in jobs opportunities, as its quarter two target was 2 500 and its quarter 2 achievement was 2 800. He said that the Agency exceeded its target for the second strategic objective; “number of young people provided with youth development information" as the year to date target was 750 000 and year to date achievement was 900 000.

On programme two, Education and Skills Development, he said that the NYDA exceeded its target for number of young people skilled to enter the job market as its target was 32 000 and it achieved 47 100. He informed the Committee that the Agency’s indicator for number of youth supported to access higher education was reflective of its Solomon Mahlangu Fund and recruitment for the Fund was from August to November. Therefore, the target would only be achieved in the fourth quarter.

The remaining performance indicators dealt with the National Youth Service Programme. He said that the third performance indicator focused on positions for the National Youth Service Unit. Due to delay from the Cabinet approval process, the Agency did not yet achieve its target of advertising positions for the National Youth Service Unit. He said that it achieved its other targets centred on the NYS and noted that the willingness of stakeholders to register projects with the NYS contributed to the Agency overachieving its target for number of national youth programmes projects registered as it achieved 31 out of its 25 targets.

Mr Carrim said that on programme three, the Agency did not have any quarter 2 targets for the number of programme evaluations and stakeholder satisfaction surveys conducted, as this indicator was only applicable in the third and fourth quarter. However, he said that the Agency conducted two studies in the year to date.

He said that the Agency overachieved its year to date target for sourcing funds from the public and private sectors to support the youth development programme, as it sourced R62.6 million compared to the initial target of R60 million. He said that it lobbied five private and public stakeholders to implement the youth development programme. The Agency exceeded its initial target of three stakeholders and attributed this to the willingness of stakeholders to meet and partner with NYDA.

On programme four (Governance), Mr Carrim said that implementation of the Information and Communications Technology (ICT) Road Map was a key performance indicator and focused on ICT governance that would provide faster and smarter service delivery of ICT to young people. The Agency's year to date achievement was 75% implementation of the ICT governance framework. He said that the NYDA did not achieve its targets for year 1 of its three-year training programme as designed by the Agency's Human Resources Strategy. Corrective measures were enforced to ensure that all targets under the Human Resource Strategy were met by the third quarter. He said that the Agency’s corporate portfolio was responsible for implementing the official integrated marketing and communication strategy, which was yet to be approved. Once approval was given, the Agency aimed to achieve this target by the end of quarter three. He said that the Agency achieved its target for payment of legitimate service provider invoices within a 30-day period. 

Mr Carrim gave a breakdown of the second quarter’s budget for key programmatic areas. For Economic participation, the NYDA had a budget of R31 112 304 and spent R32 000 000. For Education and Skills development, the Agency's budget was R34 917 530 and spent R28 779 703. The Acting CEO said that implementation for some jobs and technical skills programmes fell behind and was reflective in the performance. The Agency has appointed service providers to carry out these programmes and would be reflective in quarter three spending. The NYDA allocated R17 640 520 for the National Youth Service Programme and spent R15 226 334. The Service Delivery Channel had a budget of R16 640 380 and the NYDA spent R15 583 783.

He said that Research and Policy was allocated R2 113 970 and the NYDA spent R2 103 688. Administration was allocated R37 501 102 and the NYDA spent R36 567 783. Employee cost was allocated R81 598 874 and the NYDA spent R81 672 736. He said that the Agency's overall spending was at 95% of its quarter two budget.

Mr Carrim informed the Committee that on Friday 11 November 2017, the NYDA would launch its new offices, which were named after the late struggle hero Tsietsi Mashinini. The unveiling ceremony would be held with the Mashinini family. He said that the NYDA created Wi-Fi Hotspots at all its branches and would officially launch the Wi-Fi hotspots of all NYDA branches in Nelspruit during November 2017.

Discussion

Mr S Motau (DA) said that it was encouraging to hear of the NYDA’s high performance culture. He noted that the National Youth Service Programme report outlined activities aimed at fostering patriotism, social cohesion and nation building, principles which stemmed from the National Development Programme. He asked what form of activities the NYDA were talking about. He asked the NYDA what it viewed as optimal funding, as it aimed to lobby for more funding for the NYS.

Ms Z Jongbloed (DA) said that she was going to ask a similar question to Mr Motau's question of additional funding. She wanted clarity on this issue. She noted the under situational analysis section, there was reference made to the NYDA’ management policy. She asked for a copy of the NYDA’s management policy as to understand the Agency's consequence management. She said that she was concerned about the statistics on the unemployment of young people being at 60.2%, youth headed households stood at 26.1% and young people without matric was at 59.4%. She asked how one could consider these figures. Were they rising or were they stabilising?

She said that when one took the whole picture and drew it towards the mandate of the NYDA, something did not seem right to her. She asked what the NYDA was doing to bring down these figures? What was the comparison, were they up or down? How was the Agency addressing this? She said that under area one, economic participation, the NYDA had an indicator on the number of young people skilled to enter the job market. She noted that the NYDA overachieved its quarter two target by upskilling 28 318 people. She moved over to the number of jobs facilitated through placements and noted that the Agency had a target of 1 250 and achieved 3 587. She said that when these figures were looked at in insolation, they looked great. She asked what happened to the 28 318 people who were trained but not placed in jobs.

Mr S Mncwabe (NFP) said that he was also concerned about the figures given under the situational analysis. He focused on youth headed households which was 26.1% and youth without matric at 59.4%, which he viewed the second statistic as a serious problem. He asked the NYDA what its plan or strategy was to reduce the number of youth headed households. He said that he was mindful of the fact that the NYDA could not win this battle alone as it was an agency; it was not a full-fledged department. He asked if the NYDA lobbied with the Department of Social Development on this topic and if it had, what were the developments of this partnership. He said that this was a painful issue and he came across this problem whilst doing constituency work in KwaZulu Natal after certain parts experienced flooding. He asked if the NYDA had a funding plan for solutions to this problem.

He noted the high level of youth without matric and said that these individuals were a potential threat to South African society. He said that these people were hopeless as individuals with matric were not guaranteed employment, what more those without a matric certificate. He said that these youths fell into the category of unemployable. He asked if the NYDA had strategies to address this problem. Did the Agency lobbied with the Department of Higher Education about the Sector Education and Training Authority (SETA) on skills development for these youth? He said that they needed some sort of empowerment such as artesian skills in order to start something.

Ms W Newhoudt-Druchem (ANC) thanked the Agency for the presentation. She asked about the NYDA’s overall staff composition. She said that there was no mention of the current number of staff at the NYDA or the gender balance of within the staff component and people with disabilities at the NYDA. She asked the percentage of staff with disabilities at the NYDA. She said that she was concerned about high level of the youth without matric. However, she was more concerned about the people who had disabilities, especially deaf people without matric. She said that people with disabilities and without matric could not find employment at all as matric was the basic requirement for job. She said that a lot of deaf people did not have matric and depended on their social grants. What was the Agency's relation with the Department of Basic Education? Was it good or bad? Did they work closely together to reduce this number?

Ms Newhoudt-Druchem said that she liked the Agency's report but did not get a feel of what was happening out there. What were people doing? The Agency touched on social cohesion, what was the NYDA doing to achieve this? She said that the Committee visited the NYDA offices but when Members read the report, they do not get a sense of what was happening out there. What did the youth want from the Agency? She noted that the Agency might not be able provide these demands because of funding but what did the Agency hear from the youth out there? She said that at the last meeting, there was mention of mobile offices. Were they been rolled out? What was the impact and were they successful so far?

Mr M Ntombela (ANC) said that he was also concerned about youth without matric. He asked if the there was any collaboration with Department of Education on this issue. He said that he was curious about the former CEO resignation and he noted the way the Agency framed the appointment of the Acting CEO on slide 3 and focused on the sentence “The Board’s desire is to have a stable and functional agency during this period". He said that this sentence gave him the impression of the circumstances which led to the resignation of the former CEO. He asked the Agency to give a comment on this issue.

He asked how the NYDA marketed and communicated its grant funding, in order to attract those who needed assistance. What was the value hood of grants given to youth? What did the Agency regard as a substantiate value for grants? How did it monitor that grants were serving its purpose? He said that the social-economic challenges for the youth seemed to be escalating given the statistics presented. He asked if there were any innovations taken in the NYDA’s programmes to tackle these escalating challenges. He said that for the success of the NYDA's programmes, the municipalities had to play an important role and asked about the success of strategies with the municipalities. How willing were they to assist the youth with programmes that the NYDA was running?

Mr Ntombela asked about the naming of Tsietsi Mashinini House and acknowledged that the Mashinini were consulted. He asked if the rest of the NYDA's constituency accepted the name. He said that the word consultation was very problematic and asked how far and wide did the NYDA cast its net when consulting people about the naming of its offices.

Mr M Khosa (ANC) said that Ms Newhoudt-Druchem touched on his question. He said that Mr Risenga Maluleke, the Statistician-General, would present on the empowerment of women and people living with disabilities to senior positions as it was a crucial issue. He said that the NYDA was scarcely visibly in rural areas. He asked the Agency what were its strategies to assist and inform youth residing in these areas? He commented that there was a high population of youth living in these areas and they had no knowledge about the NYDA. He asked if the Agency was going to fill the crucial posts on a contractible basis, in order to keep the organisation operating. He said that the NYDA achieved 75.2% of its targets in the second quarter. What was the Agency's turnaround strategy, so that it achieved all its targets for the third quarter?

Ms R Lesoma (ANC) wished the newly appointed Statistician-General and Acting CEO of the NYDA good luck in their tenures of office. She said that the delay of bringing the youth policy before Parliament had an impact on how resources were allocated to the NYDA. It would affect how the Agency refocused itself and rising to the occasion that the Committee was expecting, and the youth who were expecting economic support. She said that she previously raised this issue and would do so until there was a positive result. It was important for the NYDA to recognise that next year it would be working towards closing shop, in preparation for the 2019 elections. The future delays caused by the election period would have an impact on the NYDA's ability to achieve its targets.  She heard that the NYDA was included for “reconfiguration" of chapter nine institutions and at a lower level, chapter ten institutions. However, she was not sure if the NYDA was meant to be part of this consultative process.

Ms Lesoma asked if there was any deliberative intervention to promote or facilitate the financial support in the agricultural sector. She noted that there was a drought but said that there were other areas within the sector that could be taken advantage of by young people. She asked how far the NYDA came along with lobbying for the relaxation of regulation for the new job market processes, especially those on intake of young people. She said that it was important to know if the NYDA is making a dent in five years, one year or two years; if it was two years, it was not sustainable. What were the findings on this exercise? She was very happy with the consistency of the administration as it ensured that the NYDA performed and acted in accordance to corporate governance. This led to stability and she hoped that the other departments learnt from the NYDA.

Ms Z Dlamini-Dubazana (ANC) said that she was worried about the NYDA's financial performance. The Agency was allocated financial resources to fund and address identified problems. She said that the NYDA appeared to be regressing on its spending as in 2017/2018, the Agency was allocated R 68 700 000 for economic participation and should sustain the NYDA for four quarters. However, when she looked at what the Agency did to date, it appeared to have overshot its spending, as the quarter two actual budget stood at R30 200 000. She said that she did not understand where the problem lied, and it appeared that the Agency might need assistance. She asked if there was a problem with planning and prioritising? Where did the problem lie for financial performance? She said that if financial performance was not aligned with the programmes, then problems for auditing would arise.

Ms Dlamini-Dubazana referred to her initial example about the allocation for economic participation and said that the NYDA should be spending about R17 000 000 per quarter but spent R30 000 000 to date. She lamented that the NYDA should be spending R18 000 00 per quarter for Education and Skills development but already spent R29 000 00 in quarter two. She said that the only area that the NYDA performed well was the research and policy area as alignment between the finances and programme existed. This alignment was reflective in the spending NYDA did as it tried to stay within its spending.

Responses

Mr Carrim replied to the issue of optimal funding. He said that the concerns raised by the Committee were taken into consideration of the Agency's call for additional funding. He said that the Board be consulting their constituencies to develop a mandate from the young people. It was true that young people did not feel the presence of the NYDA as there were not enough access points. The Agency was not able to communicate and market its products. Therefore, the Board made its mandate that there was an NYDA within all district municipalities. At the provincial level, there were at least two mobiles offices that had to reach deep line rural areas, to provide products and services. He said that when the NYDA developed its business case, it applied for R 1 120 000 for the Agency and R 3 500 000 over the midterm framework period. The Agency understood that there was a fiscal challenge within the economy and low growth slump at the moment.

He said that the Agency would not throw its hand in the air and accept its fate; it was exploring different models for access to opportunity for young people. The NYDA wanted to develop a smaller and different structure in district municipalities. In the past, the Agency would have adopted the local youth office model, whereby the NYDA would be dependent on the municipality to provide it with an official to manage the local youth office. However, all this official would do is give youth information about the National Youth Development and refer them to visit the main NYDA branch for grants or service. He said that in the Western Cape, if a young person visited a local youth office in Paarl or anywhere else, they would still have to travel a fair distance to the NYDA branch in Cape Town to access grants and services. The Agency sought to gain permission from district municipalities to occupy an office, which it would capacitate with NYDA employees. This office would be allowed to give out grants and allow access to job opportunities. He said that the NYDA would request municipalities to come on board though Premiers offices and local municipality to add to the funding of the NYDA, in order to mainstream youth development.

He responded that the National Youth Service (NYS) programme spoke to two elements. The first element was providing young people with skill development which they might lack and make them unemployable. Secondly, it addressed the issue of volunteerism. In the sectors of health, education and defence, the NYDA wanted to give young people, especially unemployed graduates an opportunity to volunteer their time, gain experience and develop a culture of volunteerism. He said that skills were lacking in the rural areas. The aim of the NYS programme was to give these youths skills and develop a culture of social cohesion and patriotism.

He said that the Agency would provide the Committee with a copy of its performance management policy.

Mr Carrim responded to the queries on the statistics on youth headed households and youth without matric. He said that on an annual budget of R 400 000 000, the NYDA would never on its own, be able to make a dent on the youth statistics figures. The budget was not at a level and scale whereby the Agency could target large scale programmes to have an impact on youth development. However, he said that the NYDA was at the centre of youth development but not the sole implementer of youth development. Youth development cut across the Department of Basic Education, the Department of Higher Education and Sector Education Authority.  As part of the NYDA mandate, the Agency developed the Integrated Youth Development Strategy (IYDS), which was being consulted upon and would be presented to the Committee soon. This Strategy aimed to bring the NYS to life. It assessed what was required of different sectors to have an impact on the differential statistics surrounding youth development. Mr Carrim said that in the past, the Agency coordinated the Second Chance Matric Rewrite programme and it was recommended to the Committee that NYDA hand this programme over to the Department of Basic Education, because the Department had the ability to take the programme to scale. The NYDA was working with the Department of Basic Education and consulted the Department over the IYDS.

He responded that Economic Participation programme consisted of two separate programmes. Firstly, the NYDA established where it could go out and negotiate with potential employees, and currently it worked with the Mr Price Foundation and big corporates. The NYDA informed these employers that it had skilled young people who were unemployed, and asked them to help the Agency give young people job opportunities. This target was based on the APP. Secondly, the NYDA had large scale training and preparedness programmes, which consisted of the NYDA providing youth with interview skills, critical life skills and work ethic required to achieve their opportunities. He said that he agreed with the Committee that the target was not necessarily measured at a placement perspective. The NYDA would try to get statistics on how many youth were successful in accessing job opportunities and would present this to the Committee

He said that the NYDA currently employed 365 staff members and due to budget constraints, it was operating at a 10% vacancy rate. The gender balance of the staff component was about 60% female and 40% male. About 1% of staff was disabled.

Mr Carrim said that the Executive Chairperson would answer on what the youth was saying about the NYDA. However, he responded that young people in South Africa did not expect handouts from government, they expected hand ups from the government. There was huge demand from young people in South Africa who wanted to start business, and have access to job opportunities. They required the assistance to access this. He said that there was a real need to fund youth development in South Africa so as to give young people access to fund their dreams. He said that the Executive Chairperson would address the resignation of the CEO.

He responded that the grant programme went up with R100 000 and this was the maximum amount the NYDA funded in terms of entrepreneurship. He said that access to capital was a huge inhibitor for young entrepreneurs to run successful businesses. To address this issue, the Board of the NYDA took a decision to establish a Youth Fund. The Youth Fund would aim to source funds from different agencies ranging from the public and private sector. The Fund would be overseen by an investment committee, who would look at giving investment to young people for over R100 000 on a loan basis. It aimed to assist young entrepreneurs with the necessary capital to emerge as industrialist and build large scale manufacturers.

He replied that with regards of monitoring, the NYDA requested that its strategy and planning department undertake two deep seek assessments, one on the entrepreneurship programme. The NYDA conducted post disbursement support for up to two years. However, after two years the NYDA wanted to measure how many of the businesses were successful, operational, growing and creating employment. The planning and strategy department was to conduct a deep seek assessment on the entrepreneurship programme and the business programme. The assessment on the business programme would give statistics and results to measure the impact of the NYDA and take learnings form the studies and implement in future programme.  

He said that the NYDA had agricultural programmes. Within the grant programme around rural development, the NYDA assisted with the funding of cooperative businesses within the agricultural sector. The NYDA viewed the agricultural sector as one that required transformation and was assisting with that. He said that in the next Committee meeting, the NYDA would present some of the gains of the agricultural development programme in the rural areas.

He apologised about the presentation of financial performance as the report might be misleading. He said that the Agency was presenting the spending for the year to date up to the end of the second quarter. He assured the Committee that the NYDA would not overspend on its yearly budget because it would cause irregular expenditure and would comprise the clean audit of the Agency.

Mr Sifiso Mtsweni, Executive Chairperson, National Youth Development Agency, assured the Committee that the NYDA would not regress as the Agency spent 95% of what it was meant to spend to date. He said that as part of the remedial action, the Board of the NYDA said that no unit would go for holiday leave until they were at 100%. For future purposes, the NYDA would present its financial performance as year to date expectation and year to date achievement, rather than "annual" as it this caused confusion.

He said that when the Board was appointed, it established that its role was to go out to the young people, while the administration would continue with operations. The Board came to decision based on the good performance of the Agency as it achieved 100% of key targets and indicators. It had a record of three clean audits. However, when the Board was appointed, the former CEO informed the Board that he was with the agency for six years and sought to pursue other interest. The Board persuaded him to stay for 12 months. However, the parties agreed on 6 months. To show good faith, the Board appointed the NYDA's Chief Finance Officer as Acting CEO for four months and would fill the vacancy at the end of the financial year, in order to maintain stability within the Agency. He said that the Agency's three clean audits were attributed to the CFO and he had the ability to take the Agency further. He assured the Committee that the Board did not fire the former CEO or have any grievance with him. 

He responded that youth unemployment was becoming a crisis in South Africa. He said that if one went to any township or rural areas, it was though it was holidays as young people were on the streets. However, there was a worsening situation of unemployed graduates. Young people were encouraged to get an education, in order to find employment, but were currently not finding jobs. He said that the job opportunities existed as they were advertised in the newspaper but the problem with these opportunities was its requirements. He said that for an entrance level job, young people were required to have three years of work experience and the Board decided that it was time to establish who came up with the principle of experience. What purpose did serve it? He gave the example of business looking for a secretary with five years’ work experience. He said that a young person who had a secretarial diploma or qualification should be allowed to do the job as they were qualified.

He said that the NYDA Board believed that the experience requirement was part of the barriers to entrance for youth. He informed the Committee that some universities had experimental learning as part of its curriculum programme, which included students working as part of the degree. In addition, the Government had internship and learnership programmes. Young people, who were studying for a specific skill such as financial management, took these internships but ended up getting coffee or collecting dry cleaning for managers. He said the youth were not doing internships that ensured they could become financial managers. The Board of the NYDA viewed the internship programme as ineffective and believed that if the experience as an entrance requirement was removed, the youth could begin to gain access to employment.

He lamented that while young people were the majority in South Africa, they were outside of the economic spheres. He said that the reason why the economy dropped was that the majority of people who were meant to participate in the economy, were on the outside. A small minority of youth was participating. The Board made the proposal to address this issue.  Preferential Procurement Policy Framework informed potential tenderers that 90% of their bids were judged on price and 10% focused on gender and disability quotas. He said that the Board of the NYDA suggested that this structure required changes.

He said that the current structure kept young black business on the outside as it could not compete with businesses that were in the industry for 10 or more years. The NYDA was proposing that at least 35% of government procurement had to go to youth owned businesses as it would give young people the ability to enter this economic space. He said that the NYDA supported the gender struggle for a long time as it called for 50/50 representation in top management, Parliament and all spheres of society. However, he said that it was time to support the legislation of a youth quota system and the NYDA was proposing that 40% of all spheres in society should have young people.

He said that the NYDA consulted the youth on the naming of Tsietsi Mashinini offices and received the proposal with excitement. When South Africa celebrated Youth Month, certain names popped up; Solomon Mahlangu, Hectic Peterson. He said there was always a feeling about Tsietsi Mashinini and the role he played in the Soweto Uprising and youth struggle. He said that during the NYDA’s consultation, the young people felt that Mashinini should be honoured for the role he played. He said that the NYDA consulted the Mashinini family and various youth structures throughout the country.

He replied that the Committee and Agency all agreed that the NYDA was not where young people were supposed to be. He informed the Committee that in 2006, there was the Umsobomvu Youth Fund and National Youth Commission. The Umsobomvu Youth Fund existed in most districts and had a budget close to R1 000 000 000. The National Youth Commission had an annual budget of R800 000 000. These institutions were brought together and ought to have a budget of about R2 000 000 000. However, this institution, the NYDA was given a budget of R400 000 000. R158 000 000 of the NYDA's budget went to salaries and was a key concern for the Committee as it asked the Agency to reduce its expenditure on salaries. He lamented that while the NYDA reduced its spending on salaries, there were not enough resources to make the NYDA accessible, particularly to rural areas and township. He said that when the Agency visited some of the local youth’s offices, it found that some of these offices were white elephants. He said that he NYDA was proposing to municipalities that it use this structure, but with NYDA employees, and aimed to have the Umsobomvu structure; an office in every district municipality. He said that the CFO worked out the funding requirements for this project. The NYDA was looking at its own coffers to establish what it could afford and leverage from other parties

He said the NYDA was worried about the government’s response to youth development in South Africa as the Agency listened to the Medium-Term Expenditure Framework and noted the Cabinet reshuffle. He said that the NYDA's only "leg" in the Cabinet was no longer there, as the Deputy Minister in the Presidency for Youth Development was gone. He lamented that there was no one in Cabinet to speak on issues of the youth nor have specific provisions been drawn for youth in this years’ or the next three years’ state budget.

He replied that the challenges of youth headed households and youth without matric were serious issues. The problem of youth without matric could not be divorced from those leading households, as the reason why some youth did not complete matric was that they were looking for jobs to provide for their households. He said that the NYDA was launching a National Youth Fund and it dealt with "skills revolution". It aimed to target youth who could fix broken cars, weld or were selling tyres at the corner.  The Fund aimed to properly train these young people and ensure that they could run vibrant businesses. He said that the NYDA would work with Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET) colleges and SETAs but was in a better position to identify these young people.

Ms Lesoma said that the Committee made recommendations in last year’s Budget Review and Recommendation Report about the NYDA's need for more resources. The Department of Monitoring, Planning and Evaluation should inform the Committee of the legal processes required to get more recourses under the Cabinet processes. She said that for future presentations, the Agency and other departments should first highlight issues previously raised, so that the Committee could track its progress. 

Mr Ntombela said that the issue of funding youth development was a problem for a long time. The Committee continuously raised the NYDA's visibility on the ground and funding was cited as the problem. He replied that Mr Motau asked the NYDA, what was its optimal funding. What figures should the Committee be discussing? He said that the chairperson of the NYDA mentioned R2 000 000 000. Was this the figure? If the budget needed to be increased by 200% to address the questions of the Committee, then the Agency and Committee had to talk about it. He noted the problem of experience as expressed by the NYDA's chairperson. He asked if the NYDA did not think it was time to establish a Job Creation Indaba, to articulate these points and find solutions to this problem.

Mr Mstweni replied that the NYDA was in the final stage of writing to NEDLEC on the issue of job experience. He said that the NYDA was engaging different actors, such Black Business Council, in order to gain allies. He said that the Committee and government were important forums to address the problem at hand and that the NYDA formally raised key youth matters with the Presidential Group working. He noted the suggestion of the job creation indaba and said it would be treated with urgency, as they would call the necessary roll players and establish what needed to be done.

He replied that the mobile offices were there and were meant to be officially launched with the President in KwaZulu Natal. Unfortunately, the President was redirected to another matter. He said that the mobile offices would be deployed to rural areas and were fully fledged with Wi-Fi. The NYDA developed a mobile app and it was the quickest way for youth to reach the NYDA via social media.

The Chairperson asked the Deputy Minister for her comments.

Ms Dipuo Letsatsi-Dube (ANC), Deputy Minister of the Department of Planning, Monitor and Evaluation, said that the national school of government had a programme called breaking barriers of entrance of public service. The programme aimed to orientate young graduates, sharpen skills and careers into the public service. She said that she wanted the Department to work with the school to increase uptake of young graduates. However, the Annual Performance Plan of the national school of government provided that it could hardly reach its target of bringing in 840 students, as it only reached 320. She said that the biggest challenge was that there was no assistance from the Department, in bringing up the number of uptake. She said that if the Department said it could give a certain number of young students, then the Department should work together with the national school of government in order to improve the numbers. The current underachievement of student uptake showed that there was a problem of interaction and collaboration between the two government bodies. 

The Chairperson said that youth issues were a difficult matter and the NYDA and Committee had to continue to grapple with it. He said that there needed to be better coordination as highlighted by the Deputy Minister. He noted that there was weak coordination and, yet many people needed the opportunity provided by the National School of Governance. He said that it was important to work better and smarter; the Department should be at the centre of this coordination as it was its mandate to ensure that there was proper planning.

He said that the Department should be central of dealing with the challenge of budget reductions of R2 billion to R400 million faced by the NYDA. He said that the solution might not lie with increasing the budget to R2 billion but in working smarter within government. He congratulated the Acting CEO on his appointment and wished him and the NYDA chairperson well, and said that the Committee would work with them to achieve their tasks.

Statistics South Africa (Stats SA)

Mr Risenga Maluleke, Statistician-General, Statistics South Africa, thanked the Committee for their positive messages on his new appointment as the Statistician General. However, he said that the change of leadership at Stats SA was only one person and that the collective leadership was still operating.

Mr Maluleke gave a breakdown of Stats SA’s quarter one to quarter two organisational performance, expenditure and human resource information. Stats SA’s accumulative organisational performance stood at:

• Achieved as scheduled: 30.2%
• On track: 58.3%
• Achieved early: 3.2%
• Delayed:7.0%
• Achieved late: 1.3%

He said that Stats SA had 46% expenditure. He said that 40.6% of women occupied senior management service positions, whilst overall women constituted 52% of the staff component. He lamented that women still occupied a large portion of lower positions in the organisation. However, Stats SA sought to improve gender representation and overall employment equity of the organisation as staff with disability constituted 1.2%.

Organisational performance of quarter two was:

• Delayed: 22.5%
• Achieved late: 2.3%
• Achieved early: 5.4%
• Achieved as scheduled: 75%

He said that the main reason that Stats SA achieved 75% as scheduled was due to transport and logistical delays of some surveys. He said that organisations had cut off dates for the collection of surveys from the field. For whatever reason the collection of the survey was delayed, Stats SA would not consider them achieved if handed in after this particular date, as Stats SA held itself to high levels of quality.

He said that Stats SA had 250-256 products per annum. In the second quarter, Stats SA published 65 statistical releases and reports on the economy and society. He said that Stats SA was closing the gap on governance statistics by re-engineering the Victims of Crime Survey. This survey looked at the experience of crime by citizens beyond what they reported to the police. He said that employees of Stats SA did household surveys to document people’s experiences of crime, their perspectives on the police and prosecutors. He said that it was important to have a pulse on citizen’s experience of crime, in order to create trust between Stats SA and citizens as to ensure that Stats SA had a true reflection of crimes experienced by citizens and not limit its scope to the statistics given on crime by the police.

 

He said that Stats SA hosted the 12th Population Association of Southern Africa and that it engaged several statistic orientated organisations such as the Statistical Association and Operational Research Organisation, in order to increase the number of people interested in statistics such as statisticians and demographers. It was important to engage these people so that when Stats SA publicised its reports, there were people in the field who could challenge the statistics given by Stats SA.

He said that Stats SA had an innovation for statistics in its value chain as it sought to change its data collection system from a paper based to computerised system. The paper based system included Stats SA collecting Paper-assisted Personalised Interviews (PAPI), which involved officials writing down the data, scanning and editing the document. The computerised system included the Computer-assisted Personalised Interviews (CAPI). He said that the CAPI system enabled Stats SA to give statistical reports two months rather than a year later after collecting data as noted in KwaZulu Natal. He said that Stats SA was developing a concept paper, testing methodology, frames and technology. Stats SA was running a parallel series of PAPI and CAPI, so that future generations could understand what the organisation did and how they could plan.

He informed the Committee that the Stats SA website had about 600 000 visitor sessions and about 100 000 downloads.

He said that the key achievements under leading development and coordination of the national statistics system was preparing the baseline for Sustainable Development Goals, which were presented by the Minister of Planning, Monitoring and Evaluation, at the United Nations (UN) General Assembly. In addition, he said that Stats SA was strengthening international collaboration and partnerships as noted by its recent hosting of the International Union of Science Study of Population in Cape Town. He said it was crucial that Stats SA hosted international conferences, so that it maintained international best practices.

He said that under the strategic outcome of driving legislative reform, Stats SA was consulting with the Statistics Council as required by the Current Statistics Act, to make changes to the relevant amendments.  

He said that with regards to investing in a sustainable statistical infrastructure, Stats SA had four achievement areas which were:

• Focus on youth statistical data in the Eastern Cape
• Statistical capacity building in the Northern Cape
• KZN: held a dissemination workshop with 38 Community Development Workers
• North West training in use of statistics

He said that achievements in investing statistical leadership and management included:

• Change in leadership from 1 November
• Six postgraduate diplomas in Survey Data Analysis for Development at UCT
• Donate a Soccer Boot campaign

He said that the Soccer Boot campaign was tied to a former imitative: Maths for Statistics, which taught primary children statistics through innovative and fun ways. Stats SA let the children play soccer and gathered data by measuring how many times they touched the ball, or scored a goal or made a dribble, so as to teach children probability. Stats SA ran this programme to make maths less abstract and encourage youth to become engineers.

He said that key achievements with regards to building a united and diverse organisation included hosting women and Heritage Day celebrations and Learn a Language campaign at the Stats SA new offices at Isibal House. In addition, Stats SA was running women’s programmes which dealt with full emancipation of women.

With regards to major risks to Stats SA, he said that it was facing a trend of yearly reductions in financial allocation as cuts, as for the 2017/2018 financial year there was a budget cut of R14.1 million, in 2018/2019 there would be an allocation reduction of R18 million and in 2019/2020 there would be reduction of R196 million. In addition to rising annual cuts in financial allocations, Stats SA was experiencing the increase of critical post gaps. The future impact of these cuts was that Stats SA might not be able to fund and implement critical legally committed activities.

He said that the projected over-expenditure by the end of the 2017/2018 financial year predicted that Stats SA would overspend in goods and services by R55 million and compensation of employees by R90 million. He said that Stats SA was engaging the Auditor General on this matter as the Stats SA could not lie idle. He said that Stats SA had a challenge of paying salaries at the expense of carrying out its duties. Another challenge facing Stats SA was that the people who resigned or retired made it difficult to replace their critical posts as the organisation spent 20 years building the expertise of these individuals. He said that the loss of these skilled individuals had a negative impact on the running of the organisation, more importantly it highlighted how Stats SA budget was affecting its ability to produce the best quality of work.  

He listed the Gross Domestic Product (GDP), employment, population estimates, fertility and mortality, Consumer Price Index (CPI) and living conditions/income and expenditure indicators as at risk and stated following consequences attached to the at-risk indicators:

1. GDP - There were consequences for economic growth and other measurables for the economy
2. Employment - There were consequences for job creation as measured by the quarterly labour force survey and the quarterly employment survey
3. Population estimates - important for the division of revenue
4. Income and Expenditure Survey (IES)/Living Condition Survey (LCS)- Consequence for socio-economic planning and policy development and for determine the Consumer Price Index"
5. CPI- Consequence for inflation targeting
6. Fertility and Mortality- Consequence for Health policy and planning

He said that Stats SA had six key priorities for 2017/2018 which included maintaining basic statistics and assured the Committee that issues of funding could not stop it from fulfilling its mandate. The second priority was to modernise and innovate in order to cut down on costs using Egypt as an example of Egypt which was able to drastically reduce expenditure because of modernising and using technology. The third priority for Stats SA was to restructure and rationalise. Fourthly, Stats SA aimed to work on value added products, especially those for planning on the country. He said that the fifth area was an integrated indicator framework to support future planning and to enable the DPME to do forecasting as Stats SA conducted internal forecasting and did not have the authority to forecast in the public or policy space. He said that legislative reform was an important priority and that Stats SA would continue work towards this goal.

Discussion

Mr M Khosa (ANC) said that under the major risks, Stats SA indicated that the critical post gap was increasing. He asked if Stats SA had a strategy to raise funds for all key indicators at risk.  He said that during the presentation, Stats SA highlighted that it conducted door-to door surveys on victims of crime and noted that the organisation's statistics outnumbered those of the police, as police only relied on those who report crimes. He asked if Stats SA had any engagements with the police on the issues of non-reported crimes. Have they tracked why these crimes were not reported? What were the motivations for non-reporting? He asked Stats SA how these victims could be assisted.

Mr D Ryder (DA) corrected the Chairperson on his title as he said that his initials are were DR, and he was a doctor by birth and not by training. He thanked the delegation for their presentation. He said that the update on the Stats SA Programmes was constructive and showed that the organisation was one track. He said that one challenge affecting all levels of government was the pressures of urbanisation and this issue was something that the statistics would demonstrate. He asked if Stats SA proactively engaged programmes to inform various departments about trends and putting advice together. In terms of planning, was Stats SA looking at putting out more police stations in urban areas? Was this something done proactively, or did Stats SA wait for invitations or requests from departments?

He said that during the presentation, Stats SA highlighted that there was a drive to educate provinces and districts to sensitize them about the data produced by Stats SA. He requested that Stats SA take this initiative deep down to the municipalities as the need was greater for information and the skills were limited. He said that he came from a fairly small local municipality where it was difficult to get information from Stats SA interfaces as the municipality could not afford to get the people who were specialists. The reality for small municipalities was limited resources. He said that Stats SA should speak to people at the local level as this drive would have a greater impact.

He added that under programmes 4 and 5, Stats SA aimed to become more accessible to the public and state institutions in their various sizes. He noted the complexity of statistical data and said that statisticians were incredibly intelligent people. He said that the information provided by Stats SA was imperative to people of South Africa, but the online interface was extremely difficult to engage with. This opened space for companies such as Wazzimaps.co.za. He said that this company purchased some of Stats SA's data, repacked it and distributed it. He said that Stats SA could take Wazzimaps out of the loop if it improved its interface and made it easier for the average citizen.

Mr S Motau (DA) welcomed the new Statistician General (SG) and said that the SG was aware that he had to step into very big boots and a yellow suit. He said that benchmark was set. He asked if, based on the long working relationship between Mr Maluleke and the former Statistician General Dr Pali Lehohla, did the former Statistician General advise Mr Malukeke how he should engage with the Minister and DPME? What was the one thing the Statistician General would want to do, in order to get Stats SA to where he envisioned? He asked if the Statistician General required anything from the Committee in order to achieve this vision.

The Chairperson asked if Stats SA could elaborate on the issue of transformation as provided in the presentation. What was the context of transformation? He asked if it had a strategy to deal with the issues of gender. He asked how it was going to ensure that it went beyond the 75% achievement in the third quarter.

Mr Ntombela replied to Mr Motau’s point about the role and statute of the former SG as he said that Dr Pali Lehohla was quite a big man. However, he said that looking at Mr Malukeke, he was a small man and that the Committee could not compare the two individuals. He asked Mr Malukeke what his vision was for Stats SA? Was Mr Malukeke trying to fulfil the shoes of the former Statistician General or did he have his own shoes?

Reponses

Mr Ashwell Jenneke, Deputy Director General: Communications and Marketing, Stats SA, responded to Mr Ryder’s question. He said that Stats SA recently completed its integrated communication and marketing strategy. The organisation was looking at how it introduced statistics to communities that have not used it before. It was looking at how it could improve its data storage using tools such as gap minder. He said that it has not looked Wazzimaps, but he would bring it to the attention of the organisation. He said that the Committee would recall that before Dr Lehohla left, Stats SA spent the past two to three years on making data more accessible and presenting it in more exciting interesting ways, and that the organisation continued to follow up on this.

He replied that Stats SA developed a course for local authorities and was it rolling out. It gave training on the organisation's supergraphs with Continuous Improvement Software (CIS). He said that it planned to roll this programme out more at municipality level and in Parliament; Stats SA conducted three parliamentary training sessions on the CIS software. He said that since the CIS software was free, Stats SA downloaded and gave the programme to the participants. He said that challenge at municipal level included that Stats SA trained people but when it went to the municipalities, the people might have left or there was no one to train at the municipalities. To address this problem, it started an internship programme within the organisation, training people that it thought could be employed at municipality level in order to address the skills that might not exist at that level. He said that the internship was a two-year programme and that there were currently 25 participants, which was smaller to the number the programme started with. He said that Stats SA was not immune to people leaving but that the organisation intended to continue training people and ensure that the trainees were deployed to the municipalities.

He said that two years ago, the former Statistician General presented statistics at the Director General’s Forum with the aim of cultivating a proactive understanding of the data, among Director Generals. For reasons not know to Mr Jenneke, Dr Lehohla was asked not to come back to the present at the Forum and the exercise was discontinued. However, with the new SG coming, there was an intention to take up this programme again as Stats SA believed that it was an important forum to engage and for the organisation to get to a stage where it proactively became involved.

Ms Celia de Klerk, Chief Director: Strategy, Stats SA, replied that national statistics were fully funded by the South African Government. Stats SA did not sell its statistical information to any private party or to government departments. She said that Stats SA always funded its core-statistical activities, but in the past, they received donor funding for statistical capacity funding and hosting specific seminars. She assured the Committee that it never received funding to collect statistical data for South Africa and sought to maintain the principle of non-interference.

She said that in previous meetings, Stats SA informed the Committee that it was engaging with National Treasury and the Minister to secure funding and ensure that the organisation was not affected. She said that Stats SA might need to rethink its financing strategy going forward, in terms of partnerships with other organs of state and other entities. It did not really engage with these partnerships for looking at alternative financing.

She replied that it was important to note that since September 2016, Stats SA was not able to fund any open vacancy with the exception of the SG post. She said that no other posts ranging from deputy director general level to the very lowest, were filled. Stats SA was starting to have challenges at operational levels where the organisation collected information. She said that its inability to fill vacancies was a challenge and the impacts were being felt as the cuts of the budget was approximately 30% of its Compensation of Employees and it had a severe impact on certain deliverables.

She added that another reason for delay in achieving targets was a result of Stats SA moving from PAPI to CAPI systems. She said that STATS-SA was seriously investing in its testing programme to ensure that it started with its roll out of the CAPI system in January. Immediate efficiency of the system was not guaranteed but in the medium term, there would be efficiency displayed. She said that this was the reason for going to and fro, testing the veracity of the methodology and sampling, which affected achieving some targets. She said that Stats SA would address these issues in the third quarter but assured the Committee that it was driven to ensure the technological aspect was sound before the organisation embarked on the programme roll out. 

Mr Marius Cronie, Chief Director: Western Cape, Stats SA, replied that the Western Cape was at the call stage of collecting and disseminating statistics. He said that the Western Province office of Stats SA worked very closely with municipalities and developed a short-term strategy to identify the weakest municipalities. Weak municipalities were defined as those with no resources or they were deep rural based. He said that Stats SA helped these municipalities to develop its integrated development plan and space frameworks. He said that Stats SA found that municipalities had difficulties interpreting data and would just put a table in their Integrated Development Plan (IDP). He said that Stats SA added a bit more mapping and graphics, which opened more doors to the community. He said that one of provinces’ long-term strategies was to capacitate the staff who conducted collection and enable them to give results produced back to the community. The Western Cape branch aimed to create a well-rounded staffer who could go back to schools and community members, and give them short feedback as Stats SA did not only want to take information from the community, but sought to plough it back.

He said that a trend in the Western Cape and in other provinces was that Stats SA invested a lot in capacity building of staff and municipalities. However, as his colleague mentioned, trainers rotated on a continuous basis. He said that the Western Cape Province established very good working relations as participants came to Cape Town for its training courses and Stats SA went to the municipalities for training. He said that it offered training on its software and databases. It was easier that accessing via the web, and Stats SA capacitated participants on how to access their information on their Personal Computers (PC’s).

Mr Malukeke replied that the issue of critical posts was a serious problem as since September 2016, as it was not able to fill any vacancies. He said prior to his appointment to SG, he was carrying two Deputy Director General (DDG) clusters and currently there were people put on acting capacity. There were three other DDG clusters with people in acting capacity. He said that two provinces, Mpumalanga and the Eastern Cape, did not have provincial managers because when a post became vacant, the system automatically closed the position and Stats SA could not hire anyone. The problem of critical posts became so serious that Stats SA has lost methodologists, whose skills were built over two decades. He said that one of biggest challenges that it faced in 1994 was that there were no black people in South Africa who could do statistical methods. Stats SA had to build this capacity from scratch. He complained that role-players such as banks and other government departments were looking and employing these skilled personnel. He said that Stats SA continued to build the capacity of its staff members, but the loss of key employees worried the organisation very much. If it could replace lost personnel, it would keep building skilled staff. However, these people could not be replaced and those in acting capacity also looked-for jobs elsewhere.

He said that Stats SA met with the South African Police Services (SAPS) over its victims of crimes information. He informed the Committee of the issue of poor statistics and on Stats SA quality assurance framework. He said that the SG did not focus on statistics produced by Stats SA but managed the entire system of statistical information in South Africa. He said section 14 of the Statistics Act required the organisation to coordinate all statistical information so that there were no duplications. Producers and suppliers such as households, businesses and users formed one community of the national system of statistics. Within the South African statistics quality assistance framework, there was poor statistics, which the SG could not express opinion on. However, when Stats SA assisted and graduated it to useful statistics, it might not be quality assured as the data was not collected with any statistical methods. In addition, the framework consisted of quality and official statistics. He said that Members of the Committee might remember how there was an outcry on crime statistics. He gave the example of police in Moboda in the Eastern Cape recording cash heists every day. However, these cash heists were of the value of R20, R50 and were money pick pocketed from a taxi; yet were classified as cash heists.

He said that another problem was that some domestic violence cases were not reported properly. When not reported, one could not deal with the social part of society and the criminal justice system. He said that there were 800 000 incidents of crime in the country per annum. Only 340 0000 of these incidences of crime were reported to the police; less than half of all incidence of crime. He said that only 100 000 arrests were made from the reported incidences. Of these arrests, at least 2 000 were convicted. He said that the criminal justice system still needed to be reformed so that when people were arrested and found guilty, convictions could be sustained.

He said that about 45% of the public did not have trust in the police and that was why they did not report incidences. In other cases, the incidences were so minor, such as theft of chickens or vegetables. Others included theft of livestock, where there was loss of life in the process; only the life part was reported as citizens said that the police did not investigate the theft of livestock. He said that this affected the victims’ ability to claim from insurance over their loss of livestock and highlighted the overall challenges facing the criminal justice system.

He added to Ms de Klerk’s comments on private funding for Stats SA. He said that some countries in Africa were funded privately, such the highly indebted poor countries. South Africa was classified as a developing country and were not funded by donor’s partners such as the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) but these donor-partners would send a technical expert for building capacity. However, South Africa institutions such as Stats SA would have to pay for this expert. He said that during the early years of democracy, Stats SA received funding from donor-partners, who had a specific programme and policy.

He said that the one activity that statisticians did not do was define policy, rather they provided the measurements for the policy. He noted that donor-funders usually had a preconceived measure of what they wanted Stats SA or other national statistical institutions to measure, which was counter policy of the relevant country. He said that the national statistician body could lose its autonomy for accountability as Stats SA was already informing politicians not to intervene in the organisations work. He said that government could inform Stats SA what to measure but not how it should measure. Therefore, Stats SA could not be subservient to donor-funders as it would lose it sovereignty and its independence to external actors. He said that asking for funding from private partners had serious implications for the organisation's independence and it needed to be funded from the public purse. Stats SA could not sell its products as the public already paid by way of taxes. He said that the process of collecting and producing data made its very expensive to sell and purchase. It previously sold data, but it did not work well and resulted in data not being used.

He replied that the Stats SA staff component consisted of 52% women, but this demographic only occupied 43% in Senior Management Service (SMS) positions. He said the organisation had at least 75% to 80% black, Indian and Coloured staff. However, there were not as enough black staff occupying higher positions in the organisation as there should be. Stats SA tracked this issue transformation was part of the vision for the organisation. Under the tracking programme, senior managers would have to adhere to agreements about transformation and transformation would be measured after 5 plus years, as it was important to transform the organisation to its fullest. He said that Coloured women were not in any senior position, yet there was a governmental drive to transform society. It was crucial to deal with transformation in its entity.

He replied that he spent a lot of years of his working life working with Dr Lehohla, as their working relationship began in 1994 when he advocated for the transformation of statistics in Limpopo, while Dr Lehohla worked in the Mpumalanga offices of Stats SA. He said that for 20 years he worked with Dr Lehohla, firstly in Limpopo, then as Chief of Staff in one of Dr Lehohla’s offices, and later becoming one of Dr Lehohla's deputies. He said that he was polishing the "big shoes" of the former SG every day, but he did not want to fill those shoes. He said he would bring his own shoes so that every Statistician General could bring their own shoes.

He said that there was an issue of labelling institutions when there was a change of leaderships. The media and other parts of the society said that Stats SA would fail. He asked, “how can we fail when we have not started working”? He said that it was important that South Africa gave himself and the collective leadership a chance to work. He said that the Executive Committee (EXCO) he was leading has an average of at least 20 years of experience working at Stats SA; the organisation was still intact. He said that SG’s were not measured according to the colour of their cloth or suit, but rather were measured by their ability to measure and highlight the numbers and do so impartially.

He said that one of the key areas Stats SA was going to address was technology. He said that in the olden days, people used to make horses go in front of trains, in order for the train not to travel faster than the horse. The purpose of this measure was to ensure that horses would not be replaced as a mode of transport, however, in the modern age, trains were travelling at extraordinary paces. He said that Stats SA drew the lesson that no one, not even statisticians, could resist change. There was a new platform where statistical information was given to people such as a car system informing a driver that traffic was clear or a certain distance away from their destination. Stats SA had to appreciate and approach these new statistical methods. 

He added that administration records were another important future area for Stats SA. There was a lot of rich data coming from schools, clinics and other institutions within society. The only risk with such data was that those who produced it might have vested interests in the data. He said that some school principals inflated numbers so that their schools could be allocated more resources and money by the Department of Basic Education. Stats SA needed to counter this manipulation of data with its administrative record and make it cheaper to produce statistical information in South Africa. In comparison with other countries, people in South Africa did not register their domain when they moved from one place to another. These people’s residences were unknown for long periods of time. Stats SA sought to address this issue and wanted to place statistics at the centre of planning.

He said that Stats SA’s relationship with the Department of Planning, Monitoring and Evaluation was improving by the day. It recognised that there were some activities it could not do, such as modelling or forecasting, but the Department had the ability to carry out these tasks.  However, Stats SA had to provide a rubric of data, rather than individual indicators, such CPI or GDP; it needed to bring together a rubric of data that made a concise story for all government departments.

He said that at international level, Stats SA would continue to account for the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG’s) and report these results at the international level, so that the President reported this information internationally. It worked with civil society on SDG's and over the past three years, no parallel reports were presented at the UN General Assembly. Prior to this, civil society was told that it had to produce its own reports. He said that at provincial level, there was a need for statistical data for provincial growth and development strategies. At the local level, the IDP needed data. He said these examples highlighted the need to put statistics at the centre of planning.

Ms Lesoma suggested a follow up which the Committee had to make, was to ensure that the letter went to the Minister of Finance for funding of human resources at Stats SA. She said that in the next engagement with the DPME, the Director General had to give the Committee a sense of comfort that everything was under control. While the Director General previously raised the issue of funding, the fact that the issue was being raised again proved that it was critical to respond. The Committee did not want to find itself in a position where Stats SA lost more critical staff who gave the Committee the relevant figures and information that it needed.

She added that she was happy the Chairperson raised the question about transformation and the manner in which Mr Malukeke addressed the question. She was initially worried, as transformation was framed as solely an issue of race, but she viewed it as doing business faster, more accurately and getting intended results. She replied that was happy that Stats SA’s targets for technology were part of its transformation programme.

Department of Planning, Monitoring and Evaluation

Mr Pieter Pretorius, Chief Financial Officer, Department of Planning, Monitoring and Evaluation, informed the Committee of the DPME planning function, including setting goals and targets to achieve specific policy objects, methods and resources. He added that measurement of policy was another key function of the Department and that DPME's functions happened at all spheres of Government. He added that the National Development Plan was a guiding reference and framework for planning in government. He said that the DPME had two primary roles; to ensure that the short-medium term plans and budgets of departments and state agencies were aligned to the NDP's objectives and another function of the DPME was to act as government’s custodian of planning. The DPME began to work more closely with Stats SA to ensure that it fulfilled these functions.

He said that one of DMPE's implementing tools was the five-year framework. The DPME had several monitoring systems, such as the social economic impact system, NTSF, and management performance tool, which monitored the signing of performance agreements with provincial Heads of Department and management practices and improved tools. He said that the DPME had monitoring systems for frontline services which included the presidential hotline and citizen’s services. In addition, the DPME had programmes such as Operation Phakisa, which focused on the revitalisation of distressed mining towns; monitoring the payment of suppliers with 30 days of receipts of valid invoice; and management practices in the three spheres of government, amongst other programmes.

He said that evaluation was an important role in that the DPME evaluated strategic roles and programmes tied to the department’s 14's outcomes. Once DPME's evaluation was complete, it required a response from managers of the evaluated departments and an improvement plan was produced. He said that DPME monitored whether the relevant department implemented the improvement plan. He informed the Committee that National Evaluation of Cabinet was made public on the DPME website and that the Departments evaluations were quality assured. He added that the Department was responsible for various cross-cutting issues, where it supported the Minister on inter-ministerial meetings.

Mr Clement Madale, Director:  Office of the Director General, DPME, said that it had 29 targets for the second quarter, of which it exceeded five targets, 20 were achieved, three were partially achieved and one was not achieved. He gave a breakdown of the DPME's seven programmes and their targets

He said that under Programme 1 (Administration), the DPME had 11 targets and it achieved eight whilst three were partially achieved. He noted that two of the partially achieved targets were now achieved by the Department. He said that the target relating to the vacancy rate of 10% was behind because of the increased size of positions and the vacancies awaiting approval from relevant structures.

He said that the all targets under Programme 2 (National Planning Coordination) and Programme 3 (Sector Monitoring) were achieved. Under Programme 4 (Public Sector Monitoring and Capacity Development), the DPME exceeded one target, achieved two targets and did not achieve one of its set targets. He said that the target which was not achieved relates to the Management Performance Assessment Tool (MPAT) assessments of national and provincial departments as the Department was delayed on the revising of the MPAT standards. He said that the approval processes for the revision took longer than anticipated but it started and should be concluded by 30 November 2017.

Mr Madale said that under Programme 5 (Frontline and Citizen-based Service Delivery Monitoring), the DPME achieved all four targets, with three targets being exceeded. He said that under programme 6 (Evidence Knowledge Systems), the DPME exceeded one target and achieved another. Under Programme 7 (Youth Development), the DPME achieved all three of its set targets.

Mr Pretorius said that Department’s budget was reduced by R25 million in the adjustments budget and that this reduction was tied to the Compensation of Employees. The Department was waiting for approval from the Department of Public Service and Administration structure and could not fill any posts at the time. However, the Department currently had a recruitment drive to address this issue. He said that there was a realignment of the budget to a revised structure and some funding removed from the capital budget and moved to the goods and services budget. He said that the building found by Department of Public Works was not big enough for the DPME and that the Department had to restart the procurement process. The DPME would not be spending money it budgeted for moving to new offices.

He said that the DPME spent 89.9% of its performance on drawings for quarter one and two. He said that the budget areas of capital and compensation were underspent as given by the above reasons. He said that the DPME projected that in 2017/2018, there would be delays in procuring the new office structure. He added that the Department projected to spend 100% of its compensation budget as all posts were in the process of being advertised or filled. The Department would have spent 98% of its goods and services and capital expenditure budgets.

Progress on Recommendations of the Portfolio Committee

Mr Ntabozuko Nomala said that Committee’s first recommendation related to the DPME speeding up the development of comprehensive legislation for planning and evaluation. The DPME was in the process of formally establishing an integrated and comprehensive planning, monitoring and evaluation system to supplement the current one within the DPME. He said that DPME held consultative meetings with stakeholders on 12 to 13 October 2017 and integrated the inputs in the draft legislation, which was referred to the State Law Advisors.

He said that on the recommendation to ensure that Director General and Heads of Department sign Performance Agreements (PA’s) with the Executive Authority, and ensure that suspensions of Senior Officials were based on poor performance and submit a report on turn-over rate of DGs/HoDs, the DPME presented a report to the Committee on the signing of the HOD performance agreement, and indicated that 90% of HoD’s PA’s were concluded within the prescribed time. The DPME and DPSA undertook to embark on a capacity development drive next year to ensure that the rate of compliance improved. He said that at the meeting, the DPSA presented a fact sheet on the average time spent by DGs/HoD’s in the Public Service. The DPME was monitoring the turnover rate as part of Outcome 12

He said that on the recommendation to Develop Action Plan issues raised by the AGSA, the DPME through its internal audit function developed an action plan to ensure that areas identified by the AGSA were included in the Annual Audit Plan (APP). He added that management structures were also being reviewed to strengthen monitoring and accountability.

He said that on the Committee's recommendation that  government move with speed to establish the Head of the Public Service as envisaged in the NDP, the Public Service Commission presented to the Committee on 25 October 2015, its understanding of the challenges regarding the political administrative interface. He said that the first building blocks in establishing the Administrative Head of the Public Service was changing the evaluation panels for HoD’s to be chaired by the DG in the Presidency. 

He said that on the Committee’s recommendation to intensify frontline monitoring and ensure that departments implement improvement plans, the DPME continued to intensify the implementation of its frontline monitoring visits. He said that a total of 225 frontline visits were conducted in the first and second quarter cumulatively. These visits were supplemented by the Siyahlola visits, which focused on specific areas identified by political principals for close monitoring and reporting. A total of ten Siyahlola reports or briefing notes were compiled for political principals since the beginning of the financial year.

He said that on the Committee's recommendations of the prioritisation of filling of vacancies, the DPME developed a project plan on the filling of vacancies. The vacancy rate at the end of the quarter was 26.8%.  He said that this was since reduced to 24.2% as 1 November 2017, as internal appointments had an impact on the vacancy rate. Internal employees were appointed into promotion posts resulting in additional vacancies. He added that the filling of funded vacancies was being prioritised.

He said that on the Committee's recommendation that National Youth Development Agency should conduct an impact evaluation on the Grant Funding Programme; the DPME would aid the NYDA to conduct impact evaluation on the Grant Funding Programme.

Employment Equity Status

He said that 41.4% of the DPME staff complement was male while 54.8% was female. He said Africans constituted 72.5% of the staff complement and were the majority, while Whites were at 11.3%, Indians were at 12.5% and Coloureds were at 3.8%. He said that the DPME’s status on people with disability was 2.4%, which was set against the organisations target of 2%.

He said that the Committee raised the issue on performance bonuses and that the DPME recorded during the 2015/2016 financial year that four employees in the Office of the Minister received performance bonuses. 80 departmental employees ranging from level three to15 received performance bonuses. In addition, the DPME recorded in the 2016/2017 financial year that seven employees in the Office of the Minister received performance bonuses, while 74 departmental employees from level one to 15 received performance bonuses. He said that R1.7 million was paid out to employees under performance bonuses. He said that the Department awarded performance bonuses to deserving employees as stated in DPME's prescripts for performances.

Discussion

Ms Lesoma appreciated the update on the issues raised by the Committee. She said that during the presentation, DPME said that it would be working closely with Stats SA and the NYDA. She said that "will be" was a problem and that the Committee required specific timeframes so that it could monitor. She wanted a specific timeframe, such a year or five years.

She said that on the issue of performance bonuses, the DPME appeared to be inward looking as when the Committee raised the issue of performance bonuses, it was speaking about all government departments. She asked if there was a management performance tool in process. What were the challenges? She said that previously, the Department informed the Committee that the DPME and DPSA had a working team on this issue. She said that she would want to hear the progress on this working team in the next meeting with DPME. She lamented that DPME could not look at itself, whatever measures or restructuring it did internally, the DPME had to do to other departments. She said that the signing of the performance agreements with HoDs and DGs should be facilitated by the DPME in other governmental departments. The DPME had to do its level best to not to be inward-looking as its core reason for existing was to ensure that it improved government service delivery.   

Mr Motau said that it was a pity that the Minister was not in the meeting, as she would have best answered the issue raised by NYDA on losing the Deputy Minister in Cabinet. He said it would be important to know whether this issue was resolved or if intervention would occur. He said that issue of budget management and the labour paper, the Committee made a request for the paper and were told this document was a confidential document. In other words, it was a secret of the Cabinet. He asked if this budget prioritisation was to realign the budgeting process and follow with the Medium-Term strategic framework. Why was this hidden away from the Committee?

Ms Newhoudt-Druchem referred back to the NYDA's situational analysis and focused on people who did not have matric. She said that every year South Africa was informed that about 1 million children entered Grade one but the number of children who reached matric drastically reduced. She asked if the DPME gave Stats SA and the Department of Basic Education any assistance to track the children and where they were. Starting from Grade until Grade 10, where were the children that dropped out or left to a Further Education and Training (FET) college. She asked if the departments worked together to find out the reasons for the dropping numbers. What were the statistics? Did DPME work on this issue and if no, who did? 

She asked how the DPME monitored other departments for youth development. Did the Department have a system to monitor? Did the Department assist the NYDA to ensure that youth programmes were implemented in the various departments? How did the DPME work with the NYDA? She said that during the NYDA's presentation, the Agency said that it had youth desks in local government, but these municipalities capacitated the youth desks with their own staff, who might not fulfil the objectives of the NYDA. She asked if the DPME ensured that those who worked on youth issues, worked with the NYDA. How did it monitor this relationship?

Mr Ntombela asked if any impact to intensify monitoring and improvement plan of frontline services was felt from the implementation of the front-line series visits. He asked which departments were specifically targeted for the FLS visits. How often did senior management of the department conduct onsite visits for frontline services? He commented that South Africa was blessed with unique diversity, Africans with black origin, Africans with White origin and African with Indian and Coloured origins; not Africans and Whites.

Ms Lesoma said that on slide six of the presentation, the DPME spoke about a comprehensive legislation for planning, monitoring and evaluation. She said that DPME should inform the Committee if this legislative programme would interlink with existing planning legislation such as the Housing Act. There should be a drive to create law which would assist in integrating the government departments and service delivery in all forms.

She said that in the previous meeting on DPMR 2015, the Committee requested that when the report went to the House, after the report was adopted, the Speaker in the House wrote to the relevant department, in order to get recent updates on the implementation. The Department should also inform the Committee on the implementation of this report, so that it could make a recommendation on the report. She said that the Committee made a recommendation about the time of releasing impact results, and that it should be in line with the BRRR and budgets tabled before the Committee. She said that the DPME responded on ensuring it played a central role in the allocation of budgets with the treasury.

She noted that given that the Committee was dealing with various issues weekly, feedback given by the Committee on the DPMR at the end of the process might not add value if the impact results were constantly stuck at the Cabinet level. She said that this affected the Committees ability to add value to its oversight role of the Department and it was crucial for the structures of government to take the Committee seriously. She said that the Committee should get progress from the DPME on this issue.

The Chairperson said that the DPME presented youth development and empowerment as a function under its mandate. How did the DPME ensure that this mandate was carried though? He said that during the NYDA presentation, the Agency presented as though it lost a voice within the Presidency as the Deputy Minister was no longer there. However, given the mandate of the DPME, this should not be the case because there was a Minister in the Presidency responsible for Monitoring and Evaluation, in particular on youth development and empowerment. He asked how DPME implemented this specific mandate.  

Responses

Mr Pretorius said that his delegation would answer some of the questions raised and the questions the DPME was allowed to pass over to the Minister, the Department would do so.

The Chairperson replied that Department had to answer all questions asked by the Committee, especially the question raised by Mr Motau about the paper which appeared to be a secret. If the Department knew the progress of the paper, then it had to disclose it to the Committee. He said that if Mr Motau was not satisfied with the Department's response, the Committee would follow it up with the Minister.

Mr Pretorius said that he would ask the CFO of the NYDA to give the Committee a specific date for when the DPME and NYDA completed the evaluation for grant funding programme. He replied that NYDA required assistance from the DPME, particularly at a policy level and interacting at higher level in government to ensure that the youth development agenda was mainstreamed. He acknowledged that the DPME did not do everything it could to mainstream youth development, but it created additional capacity in the Department in order to mainstream. He said that once the structure was approved by the DPSA, the Department hoped that it would give the NYDA the assistance it required. The NYDA was at the implementation side and if it did not have the support of the DPME at a policy level and Cabinet level, it made it difficult for the NYDA to implement its objectives.

He replied that in the previous meetings, the Committee raised issues specifically about the Department's and Ministry's performance bonuses. He said that there was performance management system for the whole of government and it was administered by the Department of Public Service and Administration.

Ms Lesoma said that the problem with departments was that they came to the Committee and issues were raised, but the departments disregarded the Committee’s recommendations. She said that Ms van der Walt (DA) specifically raised the issue of performance bonuses, and directed the question to the Director General of the Department of Public Services and Administration. She said that the DPSA responded that in terms of evaluating the performance, the agreed plan with DGs was not done. Only recently was the Committee advised that the Minister of Public Service and Administration would be coordinating a team with the DPME Minister to ensure that the assessment of DG's did take place.

She said that one of the Departments programmes was to facilitate assessments as it monitored and evaluated. Hence, the signing of performance contracts of Directors and Ministers was done through DPME. She said that one of the fundamental issues raised by the Committee and political parties was the relevance of the DPME as it did not rise to the occasion. She lamented that the Department was inward looking and that was why the Department thought the Committee limited the issues of performance bonuses to the DPME.

Dr Buhari, Head of Frontline Services Delivery and Monitoring, DPME replied that the impact of the frontline service delivery was that government was taking frontline service delivery more seriously. She said the DPME was called to address departments and that a resolution was developed to work with the DPME on the Back to Basics programme. This would strengthen local governments monitoring of frontline services. She added that another impact caused was that departments were developing their own internal models for monitoring.

She said that the DPME integrated its special projects and used executive support and leverage to influence and change some projects. She that the Department was working on a project based system when it went into communities. She said that if the Department received a call from the citizen hotline, the DPME went into those hotspots. She added that the DPME also had a specific targeting area.

She replied that focus facilities for the Department included police stations, health facilities and NYDA offices throughout the country. She said the DPME was working with the South African Social Security Agency (SASSA) offices, courts, driving licensing and testing centres.  She said that as the DPME went into communities, the focus was extending due to the contexts and needs of the facilities, which were important to citizens.

She said that at the Frontline Services and Delivery Unit, the DPME encouraged senior managers to come out with the Department to change the mindsets of managers and highlight that frontline services were at the centre of all activities. She said that on the high-profile visits, there was an increase of senior managers on board. There was also a rise in participation in the DPME outcomes on coordination.  The DPME realised that measuring the performance of departments through APPs was not enough and that it had to find way to verify what it presented to the Committee on what occurred on the ground.

Mr Madale replied that the removal of the Deputy Minister was the prerogative of the President and the Minister might not be in the position address that problem. However, he said that in the Presidency, there was a Minister responsible for Planning, Monitoring and Evaluation as well as youth development. The Deputy Minister was specially delegated the function of youth development and in light of his removal, the Minister of Planning Monitoring Evaluation would assume full responsibility of the youth development function.

He replied that the role of DPME in youth development was historically a function inherited from the Presidency. There was no capacity to oversee mainstreaming of youth issues across government departments. He said that when the DPME was revising its organisational structure, the need for the DPME to play a more active role in youth development was stressed. Currently, the DPME was a "desk", which served as point of contact between itself and the NYDA. He said that the DPME did not have the reach to other departments and it aimed to create the capacity to create mainstreaming for youth development. Once the DPME completed its organisational review and received approval for the structure, it would play a more proactive role. He said that the budget mandate paper could be located on the DPME website and he did not believe that it was not a secret as the paper could be accessed online.

The Chairperson replied that the Committee Member's questions required that DPME respond and not refer it to the Minister.

Mr Madale thanked the Chairperson for clarifying the matter. He replied that tracking students who were lost in the education systems was part of the DPME's outcomes of its monitoring system. There was an outcomes officer for education, who worked with the Department of Basic Education to track all the children who were enrolled and ultimately reached matric. He said that these officers could provide the Committee with a more detailed response on the tracking and partnership with DBE. The information in the public sphere came from the collaborative work of the DPME and other departments.

He replied that the DPME noted the comment on impact-assessment time and would engage with the team responsible for this area. The DPME structured its cycle in a manner which might not be consistent with the expectations from Parliament and would look at how it could address this misalignment. He said the Department would aim to retime its cycle, so that it gave the Committee what it required at the correct time.

He apologised for the misunderstanding on performance bonuses. He said that the DPME had a debate on the nature of the Committee questions and he now understood it as the performance bonuses of all heads of departments. The DPME would follow up with the team responsible for that function.

Mr Carrim replied that the NYDA and DPME were aiming for submission of the evaluation of the grant funds by the end of February 2018.

Mr Pretorius replied that the DPME promised to follow up on the submission

Adoption of meeting minutes for 25 October and 1 November 2017

The Chairperson thanked the delegation for their presentations and their responses to the Committees question. He said that the Committee had two sets of minutes to adopt for 25 October and 1 November.

Mr Mncwabe said that in the minutes he was incorrectly referred to as ST Mncwabe and that his initials were SC.

Mr Ntombela said that on page 5, s4.8 there was a grammatical error.

The Chairperson said that s4.8 should be rewritten.

The minutes for 25 October were adopted with amendments.

The minutes for 1 November were adopted with no amendments.

The meeting was adjourned.