The Speaker of Parliament, Ms Baleka Mbete, spoke about priority work areas for the National Assembly, problems with regard to the budget process and international visits by Members of Parliament (see Appendix for briefing document).
The Chairperson of the National Council of Provinces, Ms Joyce Kgoali, highlighted how the NCOP is going to deal with the department budget votes. The NCOP clusters several government portfolios per committee unlike the NA where there is one government portfolio per committee. Different departmental budgets could be dealt with by one NCOP committee in the same meeting. This is necessitated by the fact that the NCOP has only 54 members and does not allow for a process similar to that of the NA. The majority of members are new and this necessitated training and a workshop had been held recently.
The Chairperson said that the NCOP is the only house in which all levels of governments can meet together. It has been very difficult to get the local government to participate in the NCOP. The immediate priority is to ensure that local government takes its seat in the NCOP. There is also a need to increase public participation. Another challenge is to strengthen the institutional mechanism for enhancing members’ ability to process legislation from a fully informed and independent perspective.
The NCOP is also looking at coordinating its programmes with provincial and local government to ensure that there is a cohesive programme to direct it. This would eliminate instances where one finds the NA undertaking oversight visits at the same time to the same places as that of the NCOP. There is also a need to improve oversight and accountability capacity.
The NCOP also wants to substantially improve the finance management of Parliament. This is vital since committees need resources in order to do their work.
Questions Q] A journalist from Independent Newspapers asked the Speaker to give details on how she intends to improve Parliament’s feeding into budget debates. He also asked her to explain what the problem was. He also noted that some of the communication systems in the Committee meeting rooms are not working. He asked how this would be attended to.
A] The Speaker replied that for the past 10 years, Parliament was only able to engage with the national budget towards the end of the process of formulating that budget. Parliament has been grappling with this problem for the past 10 years and there had been debates on how to solve it. Both Houses of Parliament have adopted a resolution creating an Ad hoc Parliamentary Budget Forum that would deal with Parliament’s engagement of the national budget process.
With regard to the out of order communication systems the Secretary of Parliament, Mr Zingile Dingane, replied that since last year Parliament has been undergoing some refurbishment. He indicated that some of the building and equipment are old. Parliament has this financial year budgeted an amount of R8 million for improving facilities. Some facilities have not yet been refurbished hence there are some systems that are still not working. Such would be attended to in due course.
Q] Mr V Green (e-TV) noted the fact that this year Parliament seeks to limit trips that would be undertaken by MPs. He asked the Speaker to give the number of international trips taken in the last financial year, the destinations as well as the cost of the trips. Lastly, he asked if Parliament has powers to discipline its members or can it only rely on the different political parties to attend to this.
A] The Speaker responded that she did not have the details on the numbers, destinations and costs of the trips. She emphasized that the issue is not the number of trips undertaken but the value of the trips. In the past people were very quick to book tickets as soon as they heard that the WTO, for instance, would be holding a conference. The question would now be whether the conference or function to be attended is of significance in such a way that South Africa must send delegates.
A Parliament Legal adviser said that depending on the nature of the misconduct there are various parliamentary committees that could deal with the matter. If the conduct also constitutes a criminal act criminal charges must be preferred since MPs are not immune from criminal prosecution.
On the issue of errant MPs, the Speaker said that there are various levels at which they are dealt with. Some are dealt with in the National Assembly’s disciplinary committee whilst other go to the Joint Ethics Committee. The Powers, Privileges and Immunities of Parliament and Provincial Legislatures Act also contains sanctions against errant Members of Parliament. The problem of ill-disciplined Members is exacerbated by the fact that once there is a case, one finds much speculation and sentencing in the media even before the disciplinary process has taken its course.
Q] A journalist from Beeld newspaper asked how the process of looking into the budget would be served by dividing the National Assembly into two groups. He also asked how the idea of having Ad hoc Committees came about.
A] The Speaker replied that Parliament has been debating the committee system for some years. During the last Parliament it was felt that the debate must be concluded soon. When it was as realised that the debate on the desired committee system would not be concluded by the time the new Parliament started its work, Parliament decided to set up Ad hoc Committees. The Ad hoc Committees were formed to ensure that Parliament’s work goes on as usual.
On the issue of temporarily dividing the National Assembly into two groups, the Speaker replied that the Extended Public Committees (EPC) [which divides the National Assembly plenary sessions into two groups headed by the Chair of Chairpersons, Mr Doidge, and his deputy chairing them] would help to meet the demands of Parliament having to process and approve the national budget as tabled by Minister Manuel in February 2004. The parliamentary break during the election campaign period deprived Parliament of time to deal with the budget. Consequently, Parliament had to introduce the Extended Public Committees to deal with all votes except the Budget Votes of the Office of the President and Parliament.
The Chairperson of the NCOP added that given the number of members the Council has, budget votes would be dealt with in clusters.
Q] A journalist from Business Day remarked that opposition parties have always complained about the quality of debates in Parliament. She asked the Speaker if she has any plans to improve the quality.
A] The Minister replied that she has heard this issue before. She was not sure as to what it is that people are complaining about. One thing that was raised by the previous Speaker is the difficulty of being objective in debating issues and this does not help any one. People from other countries admire how South Africa is able to tackle issues.
Q] A journalist asked what has happened to Parliament’s language policy.
A] The Deputy Chairperson of the NCOP, Mr Mahlangu, replied that the policy has been adopted by Parliament. Parliament is in the process of putting in place an implementation document. It is also looking at implementing it in phases since it needed staff and necessary equipment. It would start by rotating six languages and it is hoped that in five years’ time it would be getting into the last phase.
Appendix:
MEDIA STATEMENT BY THE SPEAKER OF PARLIAMENT
WEDNESDAY 25MAY
Introduction
The statement briefly presents priority work areas for the National Assembly and Parliament and in the period ending in the July recess. Secondly it deals with the rest of the year. Thirdly, it sketches a picture of the challenges of a new Parliament which - on one level - hits the ground running in relation to working on the budget within very limited time, but also has to finalise deliberations on how best to organise itself for the longer term.
I. Period up to end of first term (end of June): Priority is processing the national budget tabled back in February 2004 - because of time constraints and the large volume of work in getting through debates of all budget votes, the House will split into Extended Public Committees for all votes except Parliament's Vote and the presidency’s Vote. Only the decisions, on the rest of the votes, will be taken in a plenary sitting late in June
-The Joint Programme Committee Meeting of 10 May adopted the framework as in the circulated programme. It also adopted the date of the end of July as the deadline for the executive to submit legislation to be passed this year, 2004.
On legislation I must also mention the 20 Bills which were at various stages of processing when the last parliament wasdissolved. Processes are underway to resolve whether to revive some of tern or not. A few can be revived by resolution of the House, except the Constitution of RSA Amendment Bill, where the required process is longer and more complicated. The Programme Committee meeting of the 27th May will receive a proposal and discuss and, hopefully finalise this matter in order to appropriately cater for these bills in the programme.
Some of the Bills are: The Children's Bill; Public Audit Bill:
Financial Management of Parliament and Provincial legislatures Bill;
Intergovernmental Relations Framework Bill, etc.
-Plenary sittings will recommence on 17 August after a fortnight of Committee time. It is the intention of the Presiding Officers in the National Assembly to ensure that new permanent committees will have been agreed and formed by that time (committee weeks) in order to establish certainty in thesystem. As you know, we are presently working with ad hoc committees.
II The Programme Committee has to consider where and how to cater for members’ training at the start of the second and third terms. I wish to highlight a new type of presentation to members where presenters from academia and departments familiarised Members of Parliament with the various portfolio and sectoral areas they will be working in for the next five years. This approach was adopted to try and fast track the empowerment of members of Parliament which ordinarily accumulates gradually over years of exposure to their committee work. We wish to continue with this training as well as training on the national budget process, the PFMA, etc. III In view of weaknesses of the parliamentary budget process experienced in the past 10 years, both Houses adopted a resolution creating an Ad hoc Parliamentary Budget Forum comprising of the Presiding Officers; Whips from the three largest parties and one from the smaller parties; three Members representing backbenchers from the largest parties and one from the other parties; the management of Parliament led by the incoming Secretary to Parliament. This body is preparing to start its work within days. Information will soon be on the Order Paper. The forum will then table its report to the Joint Rules Committee. One of the matters to be considered by the first meeting of this forum is how to deal with the matter of Parliament's engagement of the national budget process. IV The Presiding Officers in the National Assembly are taking the approach that only the most essential international trips should be undertaken in 2004 in order for members of Parliament to be focussed and parliament to stabilise as a new Parliament facing the normal settling down challenges We will mainly participate in the bodies we
are affiliated to, e.g. SADC-PF, Pan African Parliament, CPA, ACP-EU and IPU. The Presiding Officers will consider carefully whether Members of Parliament mustbe sent to any other conferences and international activities as we receive invitations.
-a related matter is one that was identified in the last parliament, namely that we need a travel policy to guide decisions relating in particular – committee travel both nationally and internationally. Better coordination is necessary to avoid overlaps, to manage costs and to ensure that we get maximum benefit from travelling based also on our priorities nationally and internationally.
V The four Presiding Officers are holding weekly meetings up to the next recess when we will review the regularity of our meetings. Fortnightly meetings - in the same period - will be held with the Secretariat of Parliament.
This will give us the opportunity to manage this period where there is a challenge to ensure:
(a) The normal programme of Parliament continues smoothly
(5) Discussions must be finalised on restructuring on various fronts
(c) Future plans must start unfolding, e.g. as interaction ensues with the executive members and new projects take off
(d) International obligations must be attended to including South Africa’s bid to host the PAP, including possibly hosting TWO sessions before the end of 2004
- At one such meeting we will adopt plans on other 10th Anniversary activities which we will then announce once we have agreed on the details.