INTRODUCTION AND WELCOME
Good morning ladies and gentlemen of the media. Thank you for coming to this press briefing, at which we wish to provide you with what you might call a heads-up about an overview of the work of the fifth Parliament later today during our presentations on Parliament’s Budget Vote. These will be made later today in the National Assembly and in the National Council of Provinces.
As you are aware, this is the last Budget Vote for the fifth democratic Parliament. Our national and provincial elections scheduled for 2019, will result in the establishment of the sixth democratic Parliament, with newly elected members and Presiding Officers. It will be a momentous occasion – 25 years, a quarter century – ago since we, the people, first cast our votes as equals in our country when we voted for a South African government based on the will of the people and made a decisive break with our past of colonial and apartheid minority rule.
Parliament’s financial management has improved year-on-year through implementing effective and efficient internal control systems and integrated planning and monitoring of financial and strategic management. As a result of prudent and efficient financial management, Parliament has received clean audit opinions for 2014/15, 2015/16 and 2016/17. We remain vigilant about our use of the public funds allocated to us and continue to intensify our efforts to ensure that these funds are used efficiently and responsibly. We are, for instance, in the process of reviewing regulations of the Financial Management of Parliament and Provincial Legislatures Act to further improve governance and discipline.
For the 2018/2019 financial year, Parliament has been allocated is R2.451 625 billion. This is a shortfall of R476 million on the R2.842 billion we requested. During the term of the fifth democratic Parliament, we have consistently highlighted the direct implications of significant budget shortfalls for our performance of our constitutional mandate. As the Legislative Sector, we have requested a paradigm shift in how the budget is allocated and we are working to address this matter with the Executive.
PARLIAMENT’S THEME FOR ITS BUDGET VOTE AND FOR 2018
Parliament’s theme for 2018 and for our 2018 Budget Vote is: “Making your future work better – learning from Madiba”. In this, the centenary of Madiba’s birth, the theme seeks to inspire us all to continue to build on the legacy of our first democratically-elected President, Nelson Mandela, and also the legacy of the Member of Parliament who nominated him for President at that first sitting of our democratic Parliament, on 9 May 1994. That Member of Parliament was, of course, Ms Albertina Sisulu whose birth, 100 years ago, we celebrate, also, this year. The theme is a reminder to Parliament to fulfil, with enthusiasm and dedication, its duty to be an activist people’s Parliament, responsive to the people’s needs, guided by the goal of a better life for all.
COMMENTS ON KEY ISSUES FACING US AS A COUNTRY
As we look back on the past from which we have come, we can take pride in the strides we have made. However, many issues must still be addressed for us to fully achieve the prosperous and caring society we committed to build.
The violence – especially against women and girls – still pervasive in our democracy is one such issue. It requires all of us – the state and citizens – to work together purposefully to eradicate it. It may need reviewing the laws we have passed since democracy which seek to address this violence. However, it also needs unwavering implementation by the relevant authorities of the laws that we have already passed and public monitoring of how these laws, indeed, are being implemented. The same applies to addressing the slow pace of carrying out laws, policies and programmes to address land hunger and other socio-economic inherited inequalities, which still linger on.
THE FIFTH DEMOCRATIC PARLIAMENT – ACHIEVEMENTS
Parliament, as the legislative arm of the state, has a particular role to play in addressing these unresolved issues. The fifth democratic Parliament, therefore, has paid particular attention to enhancing its oversight and law-making duties and involvement of the public in these processes.
Our oversight work concerning Executive action continues to improve, especially investigative oversight.
The overhaul of the rules of Parliament has enhanced the quality of debate and the centrality of Parliament as the national forum for public consideration of issues to find solutions to challenges confronting the country. In terms of snap debates in plenary sittings, the fifth democratic Parliament has had 12 snap debates on urgent matters of national public importance. This is considerable in making Parliament an efficient forum for public consideration of issues.
There is also the Constitutional Review Committee’s extensive public consultation process, to discuss how best to speed up land reform, specifically as it relates to expropriation of land in the public interest without compensation.
Oversight of the national budget is no longer a static process, based on the State of the Nation Address and the previous year’s Medium Term Budget Policy Statement. It is a five-year cyclical process, which starts with examining the strategic plans of departments and continually assesses what they are doing against their strategic objectives. The Parliamentary Budget Office, which has increasingly been providing independent, professional analysis and advice to parliamentary committees on budget matters, has been considered by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development as one of the best in the world.
We have adopted a Public Participation Model aimed at enhancing the effectiveness of public participation in the law making and other processes of Parliament.
The Public Participation Model has its genesis in a study of Parliament’s oversight functions, procedures and mechanisms. Professor Hugh Corder, of the University of Cape Town, conducted the study and delivered his report to the third democratic Parliament. The fourth democratic Parliament adopted the Oversight and Accountability Model and its implementation is currently underway. The Money Bills Amendment Procedure and Related Matters Act – which established the Parliamentary Budget Office, among other things - and the Public Participation Model are two examples of this implementation.
As a result of the Public Participation Model, we are currently exploring the future launch of a public education curriculum for schools. Public participation processes, themselves, also have become more transparent.
For example, Parliament now provides live broadcasts of public participation processes related to appointing the Public Protector and other heads of Institutions Supporting Democracy (ISDs). This is in keeping with one of the recommendations of the report of the Ad-hoc Committee on the Review of Chapter Nine and Associated Institutions, which former Member of Parliament Professor Kader Asmal chaired.
The committee recommended that public involvement in the appointment processes of these institutions be enhanced. The institutions are the Public Protector, the Human Rights Commission of, the Commission for the Promotion and Protection of the Rights of Cultural, Religious and Linguistic Communities, the Commission on Gender Equality, the Auditor-General, the Electoral Commission, the Public Service Commission, the Pan-South African Language Board, the Financial and Fiscal Commission, the Independent Communications Authority of South Africa and the National Youth Development Agency. On the agenda of Parliament is also consideration of the feasibility and appropriateness of amalgamating certain ISDs and to shift their budgets to Parliament, so that their independence is enhanced.
We are reviewing our rules and procedures regarding removal of a President (section 89 of our Constitution), following guidance from the Constitutional Court’s judgment on this matter.
Parliament-initiated laws are on the rise – initiated by individual Members of Parliament or parliamentary committees. Recent examples include the Labour Laws Amendment Bill to address parental and paternal leave, the Political Party Funding Bill to ensure transparency and accountability in the funding of political parties represented in Parliament and the Provincial Legislatures, an amendment to the Public Audit Act to address the Auditor general’s ability to enforce remedial action, the National Credit Act to create debt relief for consumers who do not enough funds to participate in existing insolvency measures, amendments to the Public Investment Corporation Act to ensure transparency and accountability in the investment of public funds. We have, to date, passed 74 bills this term, although there are quite a number still before us.
Much more needs to be done, but there has been greater and more focused capacity building for Members of Parliament through partnerships with tertiary institutions and enhancing our support to Members through research-related partnership s and collaboration with institutions such as, Statistics South Africa, the Human Sciences Research Council, the United Nations Children’s Fund, the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research and the Public Affairs Research Institute of the University of the Witwatersrand.
Moving beyond Parliament, we have championed strengthening the South African Legislative Sector, through the Speakers’ Forum. This structure is made up of the Presiding Officers of Parliament and the Provincial Legislatures. In 2016, the Speakers’ Forum appointed an independent panel to assess the impact of the laws of our democracy - the High Level Panel on Assessment of Key Legislation and Acceleration of Fundamental Change, which former President Kgalema Motlanthe chaired. In carrying out its task, the panel held extensive countrywide consultations on laws concerning three main focus areas - poverty, unemployment and the equitable distribution of wealth; land reform, sustainable livelihoods and rural development and security of tenure; social cohesion and nation building. In November 2017, the panel delivered its report and findings to the Speakers’ Forum. On 28 March, the Joint Rules Committee of Parliament established a subcommittee to make recommendations about how the report should be addressed. The Joint Rules Committee will finalise this matter on Thursday, 24 May 2018.
Also through our work in the Speakers’ Forum, we are examining the existing regulatory framework on the matter of ethics, as well as the institutional environment in sector. The idea is to come up with proposals meant to strengthen the ethics dispensation, including more robust enforcement across the nation.
Our engagement and leadership in international parliamentary forums is increasing, in bodies, such as, the Pan African Parliament, the Southern African Development Community Parliamentary Forum, the Inter-Parliamentary Union, the Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa (BRICS) Parliamentary Forum and the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association.
Some of the key issues on the agenda is elevating the PAP role to a law-making institution similar to other continental Parliaments. Discussions are taking place to transform SADC Parliamentary Forum into a fully-fledged regional legislative body.
CONCLUSION
Our press briefing this morning is meant to provide you with only a broad overview of this afternoon’s full presentations on Parliament’s Budget Vote. We urge you to attend these presentations – in both Houses. We will, therefore, stop here to take your questions on the overview we have given.
Thank you for your attention.
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