From lamentable to laudable — charting a new course for parliamentary oversight in South Africa.

Members of Parliament (MPs) have a tough time trying to hold the executive – the Cabinet ministers – to account. Not only are they swamped in paperwork and do not have enough staff or funds, but they must deal with ministers who aren’t interested in attending portfolio committee meetings and fail to get the legally required paperwork in on time.

During 2023/24, Parliament’s Portfolio Committee on Mineral Resources and Energy held 36 meetings as part of its work to watch over the minister and his department. The then Minister Gwede Mantashe or his deputy turned up to only four of those meetings, an 11% attendance rate. In 2020/21, that same minister attended only two of the 41 meetings.

Over the past year, the then minister of Public Enterprises, the late Pravin Gordhan, and then Minister of Transport, Sindisiwe Chikunga, replied after the parliamentary deadline to more than 90% of the parliamentary questions that MPs asked them.

The Central Energy Fund, the Passenger Rail Agency, the Road Accident Fund and the Road Traffic Infringement Agency were among entities that submitted their annual reports late (it was the fourth year the agency’s report was late), which meant MPs had less time to read and assess the reports and question the entities, department or minister on them.

At the Organisation Undoing Tax Abuse (Outa), we think that these may be deliberate attempts to avoid accountability.

Those meetings, reports and parliamentary replies are crucial tools for MPs who are genuinely trying to conduct oversight on behalf of the public. This is their constitutionally mandated job: choose a president, provide a national forum for public consideration of issues, pass legislation, and scrutinise and oversee executive action.

This week we publish Outa’s sixth annual parliamentary oversight report, Lamentable or laudable? The 6th Parliament’s legacy, which looks at how well our National Assembly held ministers to account.

The short answer is: not very well. We found Parliament overall to be lamentable. Our MPs are letting us down.

We found that the portfolio committees struggle to hold the executive to account. Parliament has no real method of holding inept or dysfunctional ministers to account, and thus fails to do so.

As the 7th Parliament, elected in May, settles into work, the time has come for a decisive shift in how our elected representatives approach governance, oversight and accountability. Our report lays out a path forward that our new MPs cannot afford to ignore.

The challenges of the 6th Parliament, which ran from 2019 to May this year, were monumental. It presided over a period of national upheaval – navigating the Covid-19 pandemic, economic fallout, the widespread collapse of service delivery, and the devastating effects of State Capture.

Yet while some progress was made, systemic corruption, mismanagement, and entrenched inefficiencies continued to hamper Parliament’s ability to truly hold the executive accountable.

The State Capture revelations laid bare the extent of corruption, but Parliament’s response was often fragmented, with certain committees reluctant to tackle the real depth of the problem. Despite oversight bodies like portfolio committees working hard to fulfil their mandates, they were frequently stymied by budget constraints, limited resources, and poor departmental cooperation.

Now, as the 7th Parliament takes office, there is a unique opportunity to build on these lessons and steer South Africa towards a more transparent, accountable, and effective governance system. The Government of National Unity (GNU) is hopefully setting a new tone by establishing a platform for collaboration. We caution, however, that its long-term effectiveness remains to be seen.

For our new MPs, the road ahead is clear: without robust reforms, we risk repeating the mistakes of the past.

Seizing the opportunity: reforms for the 7th Parliament

Public participation and civil society engagement

A call for accountability