Mind your language, David Mabuza asks the House in a week of many questions and some looming key changes

“Maybe the language that we use to make us feel we must account should be moderate… should say ‘Minister you are supposed to represent a report’. No, not to say ‘You must come. We don’t want to hear your reason; you must come’,” said Deputy President David “DD” Mabuza during his Q&A in the House.

“You are talking to your colleague. You are talking to your minister. You are talking about the work of Parliament. I’m saying in the execution of our duty let’s mind our language…” 

It seems that too many a minister who has a date with a parliamentary committee has had to ask to be excused from a meeting of the Cabinet, Cabinet committee or maybe an inter-ministerial committee.  

“I’ve noted that there are very abrupt meetings that are set on a daily basis and those meetings seek to disrupt the working of the executive,” said Mabuza, adding that committees should give “ample time to the minister to say we require you to come and present yourself before the portfolio committee on such and such a day”.

It seems ministerial feathers have been ruffled by what they consider to be an inappropriate tone from parliamentary committees. But members of the Cabinet do not seem too bothered about failing to answer parliamentary questions.  

A total of 172 were not answered in 2020. Mabuza, as leader of government business, or the liaison between Parliament and the executive, undertook on Wednesday to raise this with his colleagues. Again. 

But then those pesky opposition MPs had more questions: DA MP Geordin Hill-Lewis asked if answering parliamentary questions would be linked to ministerial performance agreements; EFF MP Victoria Mente said Mabuza gave the same response as on 25 June 2020, and asked whether since then anyone had been cautioned. 

Freedom Front Plus Chief Whip Corné Mulder was agitated enough to issue a subsequent statement, saying “the ANC ministers are demonstrating contempt for the legal parliamentary processes and have no regard for accountability”. The matter would not be left to rest. 

On Thursday, apologies for being unable to attend the governance ministerial Q&A in the House were tendered by Cooperative Governance Minister Nkosazana Dlamini Zuma, Public Service and Administration Minister Sezo Mchunu and acting Minister in the Presidency, Small Business Development Minister Khumbudzo Ntshavheni. It was the day of the late Zulu King Goodwill Zwelithini’s memorial service, for which Dlamini Zuma was a co-programme director. 

In the House, question time proceeded with the deputies, rather more staidly than down the corridor, virtually speaking, in the National Council of Provinces (NCOP) where Labour and Employment Minister Thulas Nxesi laid down the law – decent wages will be paid and labour laws respected! 

Also tendering apologies was National Assembly Speaker Thandi Modise for Thursday’s meeting of the programming committee. She’s in Johannesburg as part of a panel interviewing candidates for the post of Secretary to Parliament alongside other senior MPs over two days from 17 March. 

It’s just short of four years that Parliament has been without a permanent Secretary to Parliament. Incumbent Baby Tyawa was appointed in an acting capacity in June 2017 when then-Secretary to Parliament Gengezi Mgidlana was suspended over claims including serious misconduct and abuse of power.

Modise will write to all political parties represented in Parliament to submit names to serve on this multi-party inquiry committee. Timelines remain lumpy; it’s up to the committee once MPs are allocated to chart its way forward.