Hon Deputy Speaker, Deputy President, hon Speaker, Ministers, Deputy Ministers and hon Members of Parliament, in introducing this Budget Vote, the Speaker highlighted the strategic vision of this Fourth Parliament and its strategic objectives. Hon members will recall that both Houses of Parliament adopted the oversight and accountability model in February 2009 to form the bedrock of parliamentary oversight. During the period under review and throughout the Fourth Parliament specific emphasis has been placed on the implementation of the key elements to enhance oversight and accountability. This includes enhancing the functioning of parliamentary committees and the quality of support it receives to improve oversight; the implementation of the parliamentary Budget Office; the development of the Public Participation Model; and the implementation of the ICT Strategic Plan for 2009-2014.
Hon members, since the establishment of the Fourth Parliament, a number of challenges in terms of the committees have been identified. It is not my intention to highlight these challenges again because other Members of Parliament have done so. The presiding officers thus identified the need for a specific intervention in the Committee Section.
The Secretary to Parliament, together with the House Chairpersons of committees in both Houses, is seized with this responsibility. The initiative is aimed at arriving at a solution that will make parliamentary committees function at optimal levels and be a leading example at international level.
Certain broad areas of intervention have already been identified and we are currently engaging on these issues. This includes the importance of strategic leadership within the Committee Section, also the importance of functional leadership, proper planning and co-ordination, relooking at the structure of committees and the units under which they fall, the need for committees to deliver on their core mandate, administrative and procedural support as well as travel and logistics when committees embark on oversight and study tour activities.
The purpose of the intervention is to achieve the following: to develop strategic priorities for committees in general and individual committees in terms of their mandate, thereby ensuring focused oversight, reducing overlap in the work of committees between the NA and the NCOP and facilitating accountability and improving the quality of the legislation passed.
It also aimed at initiating joint and co-ordinated planning of committees of both Houses. We are in the process of reviewing the administrative systems and processes with the view to improve efficiency. This will include, as I have indicated, travel arrangements. It's unacceptable that core staff who are appointed to serve committees, such as committee secretaries and assistants, are seized most of the time with making travel arrangements with travel agents for committees to conduct their work. Surely that function can be dealt with somewhere else. We are also planning to qualitatively improve the quality of Minutes and also the reports of committees and to develop training programmes for staff and Members of Parliament.
We also need to improve the access of committees to research and for continuous support for research requirements. We are also asking the question whether the current structure and design of committees, both at administrative and political levels, are appropriate to ensure that they deliver on the core mandates.
In regard to the issue that the hon Godi has raised, that of vacancies, the filling of vacancies is part of this implementation plan and intervention that we are currently engaged in. I can also assure the hon member that just last week the House approved the formation of an ad hoc committee to deal with issues around the 1913 Natives Land Act. I am sure the chairperson of the committee, hon Sizane, will take the issues that the hon member has raised into account in developing a programme for that committee. The deadline for this intervention and to effect the necessary changes in the Committee Section is the end of October this year.
However, there are other issues that we are also being reminded of that impact negatively on the functioning of committees. We need to ask ourselves the question whether Parliament is setting aside enough time for committees to do their work. Usually committee work is restricted to a Tuesday and a Wednesday morning, and, if you are lucky, and members are available in Cape Town, to a Friday morning. Surely this cannot be enough for this important function. Hon Speaker, we do experience a severe shortage of properly equipped committee rooms and very often I must approve applications for portfolio committees of Parliament to meet outside of Parliament at great expense because of the limited space in Parliament. I therefore propose, hon Speaker, that the presiding officers urgently consider the phased implementation of the Space Utilisation Project with the emphasis on additional committee rooms for committees to conduct their business and offices for chairpersons and support staff. [Applause.]
Hon Deputy Speaker, to improve oversight, the Committee of Chairpersons, together with the individual portfolio and standing committees, continuous interaction with the Office of the Auditor-General. During the past year under discussion, we met regularly with the Auditor-General, and he also has liberty to come to Parliament whenever he wants to come and present certain audit outcomes. He also focused in our discussions on the use of consultants by government departments, and that report was subsequently published and released as well as the state of local government.
Together with the Auditor-General, we have developed a guide for MPs to assist them in exercising oversight in respect of departments. This guide, together with the BRRR guide, will be utilised by members in committees in compiling their reports. The office enjoys a sound working relationship with the Auditor-General, who readily makes available staff, and he is a phone call away to assist with financial oversight.
Ongoing efforts are also made to ensure closer collaboration between Scopa and the different portfolio and standing committees. It is crucial to ensure that the work of committees and Scopa complement one another. In future, joint meetings will be co-ordinated to ensure that the departments that continuously receive adversarial audit outcomes are subjected to intensified scrutiny. The modalities of this approach are in an advanced stage of completion and will be implemented in the third quarter of this year. Committees also interact continuously with the Financial and Fiscal Commission on its recommendations on the annual submission on the Division of Revenue.
The Forum of Committee Chairpersons also interacted with the National Planning Commission on the National Development Plan, NDP. Cluster briefings were held, the Minister did the presentation and committees are now tasked with the responsibility to interrogate the key elements of the plan and also to oversee the implementation thereof by the different departments.
The Department of Performance Monitoring and Evaluation as well as Administration performs important work in evaluating the performance of departments and entities. The outcomes of evaluations conducted by DPME will provide further instruments to committees of Parliament to conduct effective oversight.
The appointment of Prof Jahed as the Director of the parliamentary Budget Office has been referred to and all parties warmly welcomed his appointment. The office is now in the process of placing advertisements in the different newspapers to recruit essential staff. This process, in terms of the Act, will be driven and is overseen by the Director of the parliamentary Budget Office. Regarding to these posts, I heard comments about what content advisers are doing and what researchers should be doing. The researchers and content advisers that are currently employed by Parliament will receive in-service training in budget analysis and also other budgetary processes to ensure that they are resources to the different committees where they are deployed.
The Speaker referred in his opening address to the development of the Public Participation Model, which is fundamental and a cornerstone of this democracy. Hon Deputy Speaker, on 26 July 2012 work commenced on the development of the framework after a decision by the Speakers' Forum to develop minimum standards for public participation programmes by Parliament and the provincial legislatures. The final draft framework was completed before its deadline and was delivered to the Speakers' Forum at the end of March 2013. Final comment is now being received and the framework will be considered for adoption at the next meeting of the Speakers' Forum at the end of this month.
During the development of the framework the Parliamentary Communication Services embarked on an ambitious project to solicit the views of citizens on public participation. This was done through public hearings in the provinces, seminars in and outside of Parliament, interviews on community radio stations, radio phone-in programs, television interviews, advertisements in the print and electronic media, Twitter, Facebook and YouTube. In addition to this interaction, Parliament received more than 8 000 submissions from citizens and other institutions in civil society.
The consolidated report on these inputs is crucial in finalising Parliament's Public Participation Model. The delays caused by the appointment of a suitable service provider to do this have now been addressed. The Joint Political Task Team met on 4 June 2013 and recommended that Parliament should utilise the available internal capacity that was responsible for the development of the framework to also develop the model - with limited external support for the finalisation and consolidation of the inputs. Political parties will be asked to comment on the draft model during the third quarter of this year. Slight adjustments have been made to the timeframes and we are confident that the model will be launched in Parliament on 15 October 2013 this year.
We must recognise that the ICT strategy is aligned to the five key strategic objectives of Parliament. The main thrust of the strategy is to support Parliament's strategy by shifting from being an e-Parliament to an enabling e-democracy. Various projects are currently at different stages of implementation. This includes the implementation of monitoring and tracking systems to ensure oversight activities are effectively co-ordinated, monitored, tracked and timeously executed, also to increase public involvement and participation with the upgrade of the video and broadcast infrastructure in both the Chambers and also in selected committee rooms; replacing the current recording and transcription system, which includes the capabilities of recording, transcribing, verification, collation and archiving of sittings recorded in both Houses; the design and implementation of a system that can improve the process of drafting and editing of legislation.
The NA Chamber will undergo a comprehensive upgrade at the end of this year so that we can ensure that when votes are called for and decisions are taken, we do get credible information from the ICT system. There is also the implementation of the plan to improve the quality of the translation services.
The hon Speaker and the hon House Chair Ben Skosana have referred to the My Parliament application. I just want to add that I hope those 30 MPs who are part of the pilot group, shared their experience with our colleagues, because very soon we will also add committee programmes to the application as well as committee Minutes, where members from anywhere will be able to access any relevant information contained in the application. This will lead to a cost-saving of more than R20 million per year for Parliament and it will basically cut down on the printing costs. We will also be able in this way to decrease the carbon footprint of the institution. [Applause.]
In conclusion, Deputy Speaker, mention has been made of the functioning of the committee system as well as the staff. The committee staff has gone through a very difficult period over the past 12 months. I must especially compliment the Unit Managers of committees who have assumed leadership when the Division Manager and the Section Manager left Parliament. They have done a sterling job in holding the section together. We also have many extremely dedicated and hard-working committee staff who, despite the odds, go the extra mile to ensure that committees indeed function. I wish to take the opportunity to express my gratitude to those committee staff who assist in ensuring that committees indeed deliver on their mandate.
We all acknowledge that we still have a long and somewhat difficult road to travel, but with a dedicated team of technical and procedural staff, the journey to a professional committee system is indeed a reality. No doubt there are problems, but all is not gloom and doom. We have come a long way, hon members, since 1994 and we must continue to strive to make our committee system as well as other parliamentary obligations world class. It is mainly our political interaction and a high level of member participation that will ultimately improve our committees.
My gratitude and appreciation go to the management Committee of the Chairpersons Forum, all committee chairpersons, staff in my office for their unwavering support, also to the hon Speaker, the Deputy Speaker, the ANC Chief Whip and other Chief Whips for their support and also their guidance to get the job done, and also my appreciation to the ANC for deploying me in this important role. I thank you. [Applause.]