Low confidence in DOC ability

The Department of Communications (DOC) under-spent more than R700 million in the 2010/11 financial year, despite its failure to meet several targets.

The department presented its annual report to the Parliamentary Portfolio Committee meeting last week.

Total revenue for the year amounted to R4.03 billion and total expenditure was R1.426 billion.

The department transferred R2.6 billion to the National Treasury, of which R711 million was voted funds that had not been spent.

Members were perturbed by the extent of the under-spending, since the disabled community depends on the DOC for access to information.

Members wanted to know the reason for the under-spending and asked how the department could claim to have achieved targets related to gender, disability and the youth when the service deployment component of its programmes had been delayed.

Members of the committee were critical of the department's failure to resolve issues that arose in the previous year, despite an agreement reached during a meeting with the committee on 13 October 2010 that the DOC would redefine its strategic priorities, fill vacant posts and review the core projects.

Human resource capacity was identified as a major, unaddressed problem. Several key posts remain vacant and this has a negative impact on performance.

The extent of overtime payments, sick leave and labour relations disputes are further cause for concern.

Committee chairperson Eric Kholwane said the report of the Auditor-General shows that little progress has been made, and these findings are not a surprise for the committee.

The presentation by the department focused on its performance in its six strategic programmes.

These are: Governance and Administration; ICT International Affairs and Trade; ICT Policy Development; ICT Enterprise Development; ICT Infrastructure Development; and the Presidential National Commission on Information Society and Development.

Of the 130 targets within these programmes, 59 targets were achieved, 60 were partially achieved and 11 were not achieved.

Democratic Alliance (DA) shadow minister of communications Natasha Michael asked why there was a lack of data to conduct an impact assessment for the Electronic Communications Act Amendment Bill and the Independent Communications Authority of SA (ICASA) Amendment Bill.

She also wanted to know why the policy directive on the pricing of broadband services had not been issued, and asked if the department had obtained legal opinion on the issue of interconnectivity costs.

The DOC did not respond to these queries.

Due to the poor performance of the department, members were sceptical of the its ability to achieve the objectives of the digital migration project (DMP), which is of critical importance for the country.

With regards to the DOC's under-spending, R180 million was money not spent on the Set-Top Box (STB) programme, and R199 million on the Sentech Digitisation programme, because the digital terrestrial television (DTT) standards are not yet in place.

The additional unspent funding was because the 112 Emergency Call Centre project was terminated, and Telkom's saving of R150 million for the 2010 Fifa Soccer World Cup project.

Members questioned the status of the DMP and what had been done to create awareness among the public.

The department said the terms of reference for the awareness campaign were in the process of being finalised. A service provider was appointed to deal with the awareness campaign.

However, the agreement was terminated because of a lack of performance. The awareness campaign was developed in 2009. The appointment of a new service provider was in the process of being developed.

DA shadow deputy minister of communications also wanted to know the cost of the delay in the issue of the DTT standards.

The DOC said an interim task team has been established for the DMP and senior positions have been advertised. It explained that the project is huge and it requires specialist project management skills.

Kholwane said the failure of DTT would be a national crisis and members also asked for clarity on the spectrum issue.

The DOC said it was not convinced the auctioning of licences as proposed by ICASA would work in SA, and so it is in the process of finalising its report on the spectrum licensing to the minister.

The department has established an internal audit function, an audit committee and a risk management function, and the necessary governance structures are fully functional, according to DOC director-general Rosey Sekese.

In terms of job vacancies, she explained that minister Roy Padayachie was involved in the appointment of deputy directors-general. The process is onerous and the DOC has decided to stagger the appointments.

The positions have been advertised and will be filled by February 2012. The vacant chief director positions would be filled by March 2012, the department said.

Kholwane said it is clear that much needs to be done before the performance of the department can be considered acceptable.