The Department of Communications (DOC) is to start a "scientific" evaluation of its performance and the impact it has had on developing the country, its officials say.
DOC director-general Lyndall Shope-Mafole and Greta Grabe, the DOC's COO, said they would start this year a proper means of assessment, using information gathered now as a base year.
Questions were posed by the MPs after Shope-Mafole had presented the DOC's 2008/9 strategic plan to the Parliamentary Portfolio Committee on Communications.
According to the DOC, the strategic plan is based and aligned to the five key focus areas (KFAs) of government and meets the "business unusual" theme that president Thabo Mbeki set out in his state of the nation address.
These five KFAs are: achieving higher rates of investment in the economy; increasing competitiveness in the economy; broadening participation in the economy; improving the state's capacity to deliver; and contributing to a better world.
"Tell me DG," Lumka Yengeni (ANC) asked, "just how do you evaluate yourself and your department in terms of performing the oversight role of these industries [enterprises] in your portfolio?"
Yengeni also asked about challenges in completing these oversight roles and about the department's Inter-Governmental Relations (IGR) unit, most particularly, if it was still operational and what it did.
Making the grade
Eric Kohlwane (ANC) pointed out that he did not see any feedback for DOC successes in its strategy and asked if it just waited for the Mail & Guardian's director-general annual report card.
Grabe said the department had received a lot of feedback on an informal basis and that is why it was now developing a more formal system. She said the IGR unit was functional and it was necessary for the department to be able to deal with all spheres of government including provincial and local, and it played a role in the DOC's dealings with foreign governments.
Communications committee chairperson Ismail Vadi raised the issue of vacancies and the number of consultants used by the DOC.
Shope-Mafole replied that the DOC had only received approval from the Department of Public Service and Administration in January for its new structure and that 50 of the 91 vacant posts were not yet funded. She stated that the DOC actually used relatively few consultants and that the staff took pride in doing the work themselves.
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