The Minister for Women, Children and Persons with Disabilities is seeking an urgent meeting with both the Portfolio and Select Committees on Women, Children and Persons with Disabilities to discuss the Committees report on the budget of the Department for 2009/10.
The joint committees declined an opportunity to engage with the Department on the report during the meeting of 20 October in Parliament. Had this engagement happened, a lot of issues contained in the conclusion of the joint committee would have been better informed by inputs from the Acting Director-General and officials directly responsible for each budget items and programmes of the department.
The total Budget of R28 million utilised by the Department for 2009/10 has been audited with no over-expenditure.
The amount of R1,2 million for catering relates to all the consultative meetings that were organised over this financial year to consult stakeholders in the three sectors – women, children and persons with disabilities. These meetings solicited continuous input of stakeholder at various stages of the development of the new Department. These consultations were attended by hundreds of stakeholders.
The Ministry is responsible for ensuring South Africa’s compliance in all the regional (Southern African development Community), continental (African Union) and international (United Nations) treaties relating to women, children and persons with disabilities. It is also responsible for mainstreaming of gender, children’s right and disability consideration at levels throughout the country. The amount of R7 million relates to the travel of all the officials of the Department relating to this work.
During the whole of the financial year in question, Minister Mayende-Sibiya travelled to four meetings outside of South Africa and she was accompanied by the members of the Portfolio and Select Committee in at least one of these meetings, i.e. UN Commission on the Status of Women in New York.
Contact:
Sibani Mngadi
Cell: 082 772 0161
