THE NATIONAL ASSEMBLY
QUESTION FOR WRITTEN REPLY
Question 1798
Mr J F Smalle (DA) to ask the Minister of Trade and Industry:
(1) Whether (a) the National Lotteries Board (NLB) and (b) any other entity reporting to him has provided funding to a trade union/organisation in the (i) 2006-07, (ii) 2007-08, (iii) 2008-09, (iv) 2009-10 and (v) 2010-11 financial years; if so, in each case, (aa) which entity provided the funding, (bb) to which trade union/organisation was funding provided, (cc) how much money was given and (dd) what was the intended purpose of the funds;
(2) Whether his department conducted investigations to determine whether the funds were applied as intended; if not, why not; if so, how were these funds spent in each case;
(3) How does his department ensure that funds granted are applied as intended?NW2030E
Response:
(1)(i)-(iv) According to the NLB, there were no funds allocated to a trade union or organization in the 2006 to 2010 financial years.
(1)(v) According to the NLB, they provided funding to Cosatu during the 2010 to 2011 financial year and the amount was R1 million.
(1)(dd) According to the NLB, the grant was made in response to an application from Cosatu to the Miscellaneous Purposes category for a contribution towards the 25th Anniversary event and was specifically allocated as follows:-
National Artists: R650,000.00
Stage and Sound: R250,000.00
Venue: R 50,000.00
Local Groups: R50,000.00
Response:
(2) No investigations were conducted. The mandate to conduct investigations to determine whether funds were applied as intended rests with NLB which has oversight over the activities of the Distributing Agencies. However, the dti has a Memorandum of Agreement (MoA) with the NLB which governs the relationship and expected compliance measures emanating from legislation. As part of the MoA, the NLB is required to submit strategic and business plans annually, which are reviewed and approved by the dti. In order to monitor the performance, the dti requires quarterly and annually reports against the agreed indicators and performance measures. Further, the annual reports of the NLB are tabled in Parliament by the dti to account and give progress on their achievements and challenges. Also, the following steps have been taken to monitor compliance amongst others:
- Revising the site inspection approach and streamlined templates to distinguish between more focused pre-grant and more general inspections. This is reducing the time it takes to make payments by making pre-grant inspections quicker and is working well.
- Reviewing the grant making system to align it with a more improved process flow, with the intention to link it to the website for the public to be able to track progress of applications online in the near future.
- Introducing amendments that will deal with challenges that require legislative amendments. The Policy and Bill are in the process of being processed for public consultation and parliamentary process
Issued by Parliament, July 14 2011
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