Daily Maverick
Dailymaverick logo

South Africa

South Africa, Maverick News

Parliament in GNU times — first tests loom for oversight and accountability

Parliament in GNU times — first tests loom for oversight and accountability
Marianne Merten
By Marianne Merten
19 Jun 2024
Facebook
0
Parliament is on tenterhooks for President Cyril Ramaphosa to announce his Cabinet so it can establish its oversight committees to reflect ministers’ portfolios. Adopting the Budget by 31 July, a hard statutory deadline, will be the first test of this new cooperation.

The pickle for Parliament will be its watchdog on government spending, the Standing Committee on Public Accounts (Scopa), because traditionally it’s been chaired by an opposition political party.

With the government of national unity (GNU) that now consists of the ANC, DA, IFP, Patriotic Alliance (PA) and Good, the official opposition in the National Assembly is uMkhonto Wesizwe (MK), the six-month-old political disruptor led by ex-president Jacob Zuma.

It is highly unlikely the MK party will become the chair of Scopa given its political orientation, which was signalled by its boycott of the 14 June first sitting of the National Assembly and the lack of clarity on when its MPs will present themselves to be sworn in. That would leave ActionSA or Rise Mzansi, which have situated themselves on the opposition benches, to provide the Scopa chairperson. Or it could go to the Freedom Front Plus if it decides not to join the GNU.

Committee chairpersons in Parliament are central to directing the work of committees — and the depth of oversight. The Zondo State Capture commission was scathing about the series of parliamentary oversight failures and inefficiencies. 

In the State Capture years of the Zuma presidency, a cluster of committee chairpersons was key as early as 2011 to fobbing off opposition requests to probe widespread public reports on the Gupta brothers’ irregular influence on state affairs. In early 2017, a leaked trove of emails, dubbed #Guptaleaks, lifted the lid on the extent of the Guptas’ influence on the Zuma administration and state-owned enterprises including Eskom, Passenger Rail Agency of SA (Prasa) and Transnet.

Scopa bucked the trend, as did the public enterprises committee, which was the only committee of the four asked in mid-2017 to probe State Capture that actually completed the job, with a hard-hitting 2018 report critical of ex-public enterprises ministers Lynne Brown and Malusi Gigaba.

Opportunity for reform


Now Parliament has an opportunity to turn over a new leaf — and to pursue proper oversight scrutiny of executive action, holding officials and ministers accountable and, crucially, not letting the executive, from the Cabinet to the Presidency, treat it like a junior instead of the legislative sphere of state.

One test will be whether the National Assembly establishes an oversight committee on the Presidency. The IFP and DA have long called for this to boost oversight over a Presidency that’s become increasingly powerful as economic, state security and other governance functions have moved there over the past five years. An oversight committee for the Presidency, or Vote One, is also a Zondo State Capture commission recommendation. 

The previous Parliament kicked a decision on establishing a Presidency committee to the post-29 May election National Assembly. It’s part of a long list of possible matters to revive for further consideration — although reviving the Appropriation Bill, effectively the Budget, is an urgent priority given the 31 July deadline for its adoption. The House is scheduled to meet on Tuesday, 25 June to do exactly that.

Another test for Parliament will be if non-ANC MPs from the DA, IFP and the other cooperation partners become chairpersons of committees.

The talk has been that committee chairpersons should come from a party other than the minister’s, which would effectively mean an ANC minister would have to deal with a committee chairperson from another party.

It’s not clear what exactly this would mean for the ANC’s study group system in which ministers and senior officials meet ANC MPs on a committee to discuss matters ahead of the actual committee meeting. The study group has, on many occasions, been used by ANC ministers to give instructions to ANC MPs, particularly if it dealt with prickly and politically sensitive matters.

Having a DA or IFP MP as chairperson of a committee supervising an ANC minister could be a step towards greater scrutiny and accountability. That’s because ANC ministers have become used to being protected by their party colleagues in committees and in sittings (for examples, read here, here, here, here and here).

Crucial for Parliament to realise its full potential is that the National Assembly Speaker, Thoko Didiza, is widely respected on both sides of the House. This dates back to when she was House chairperson from 2014 to 2016 and chaired sittings with humour, rules knowledge and a firm, but fair hand. The Speaker is the head of the legislative sphere of the state, like the President heads the executive — and sets the tone, direction and work ethic for the institution.

“We believe in your commitment to a Parliament that’s effective. We don’t doubt your capacity... We contested because we don’t agree to the marriage of convenience [of the GNU],” EFF leader Julius Malema said after the first sitting of the National Assembly wrapped up with the election of Didiza, Annelie Lotriet as her deputy and Cyril Ramaphosa as President.

Earlier, Didiza dealt firmly with an EFF request to bring an urgent motion to impeach Ramaphosa over the saga of the dollars in sofa cushions at his Phala Phala game farm. Didiza pointed out the matter had been dealt with in the previous Parliament — the ANC voted down the impeachment — and she would advise on the EFF’s letter reinstituting the impeachment motion in good time. Done and dusted, and proceedings moved on.

New political lines


The National Assembly will have to come to grips with a new set of political dynamics. Not only do the DA and IFP lose their status as opposition parties — as GNU partners that’s no longer possible — but a newcomer, the MK party, is the largest opposition party in Parliament.

While it’s not yet clear when exactly the 58 MK party MPs will be sworn in, all indications are that they will join the “Progressive Caucus”, which consists of the EFF, United Democratic Movement, Al Jama-ah, African Transformation Movement, Pan-Africanist Congress and United Africans Transformation.

This caucus of largely populist, often chauvinist and anti-Constitution political parties has 106 MPs of the 400-strong National Assembly, or just over a quarter. On the other side of the House, the combined GNU representatives of the ANC, DA, IFP, Good and PA hold 273 seats.

Self-identified as opposition are ActionSA (six MPs) and Rise Mzansi (two MPs), while the positioning of 13 other MPs of the Freedom Front Plus (6), African Christian Democratic Party (3), Bosa (2) and the National Coloured Congress (2) remains in flux. 

These are wholly new political lines and will be closely watched in South Africa’s rejigged political landscape. Parliament is on the cusp of doing things differently — and if it does so in the pursuit of oversight, transparency and accountability, it will be to the benefit of South Africa’s constitutional democracy. DM

Categories:

Tags: