The National Planning Commission is an independent advisory body to government comprising experts from the private sector, academia and other stakeholders focusing on South Africa’s medium- and longer-term requirements as defined in the National Development Plan
Institutional set up of the National Planning Commission
The National Planning Commission is established in terms of the Revised Green Paper, National Planning Commission, General Notice 101 of 2010 in which reference is made to the powers of the President to, inter alia, appoint commissions, as per section 85(2) of the Constitution.
On 17 September 2015 President Jacob Zuma announced the appointment of the second National Planning Commission, consisting of 25 members, including the Chairperson and Deputy Chairperson. The Commissioners were appointed on a part time basis for a five-year term starting in September 2015. The work of this Commission is expected to continue the work done by the first Commission, which produced the National Development Plan: Vision 2030 (NDP), as well as execute the mandate given to it by the President.
The institutional set of the NPC is made up of the Commission and the Secretariat, both located in the Department of Planning Monitoring and Evaluation (DPME) since 2014, with the Commission being an autonomous, independent body, but resourced through the DPME.
National Planning Commission Secretariat
The work of the commission is supported administratively and technical by a full time Secretariat. This entails coordinating the work streams of the Commission, managing the research and consultative processes, drafting reports, liaising with stakeholders, as well as logistical support for NPC meetings.
The Secretariat is headed by a Secretary of National Planning, Mr Tshediso Matona, supported by the Deputy Secretary of National Planning, Dr Kefiloe Masiteng and a team of sector experts. In addition, technical support is also drawn from the Department of Planning, Monitoring and Evaluation (DPME).
In 2014, as part of the reorganisation of the state, the responsibilities for national planning (NPC secretariat in particular) were fused with those for Monitoring and Evaluation under a single Minister in the Presidency Mr Jeff Radebe, and the NPC Secretariat was now located in DPME. This somewhat of a departure from how the Secretariat was conceived in the Revised Green Paper has unintentionally created institutional ambiguity in which the Secretariat straddles two interfaces (with the NPC and with DPME) in organisational and accounting terms.
The issue has arisen, and is receiving attention, in the context of the organisational review of the DPME which has now been concluded.
National Planning Commission Mandate
On their appointment, the President outlined the mandate of the NPC as follows:
To promote and advance the implementation of the National Development Plan across different sectors of society;
To undertake detailed planning in a selected number of sectors to be determined from time to time;
To conduct regular engagements with various sectors of society on all matters pertaining to the long-term development of the country;
To facilitate stakeholder engagements aimed at forging a social compact towards more effective implementation of the National Development Plan;
To take a cross-cutting view, undertake research into long-term trends, analyse implementation of short to medium term plans with a view to recommend improvements to Government as well as produce reports to inform policy and planning; and
To contribute to development of international partnerships and networks on national planning
National Planning Commission Work Programme
Arising from the three-day planning workshop of the National Planning Commission in December 2015, the Commission agreed on the following scope of work, informed by the given mandate:
Catalyse leadership and engagement with society at all levels, to build confidence and trust, employing strong and continuous communication
Identify entry points for accelerating implementation including the optimisation of existing resources to enhance service provision as well as the harnessing of additional resources in the private and public sectors
Reflect and build on the work of the first Planning Commission
Continue to strengthen data, monitoring and evaluation processes and systems
To take these priorities forward, the NPC structured itself into the following three thematic work streams:
To promote and advance the implementation of the National Development Plan across different sectors of society;
To undertake detailed planning in a selected number of sectors to be determined from time to time;
To conduct regular engagements with various sectors of society on all matters pertaining to the long-term development of the country;
In addition, since then, the Commission has generated several issue-specific task teams (currently 16 in number), including special sub-committees convened by the Deputy Chair, Professor Malegapuru Makgoba to advise the President on the following three urgent matters:
The alignment of budgets with NDP priorities with the view to advising the Minister of Finance ahead of finalisation of Budget 2016;
The potential of further protest at higher education institutions at the beginning of 2016 and ways of resolving the issues; and
The potential impact of the proposed electricity tariff increase by Eskom on the pressing priority to reduce the cost of living and the cost of doing business.