17/05/2008 17:29 - (SA)
Shrinking violets speak out
Parliamentarians seem to be asserting themselves more vigorously over the executive and entities that report to them. But as CAIPHUS KGOSANA writes, observers are worried this might just be a temporary phenomenon.
EVENTS that unfolded in Parliament around the SABC and its board perhaps best describe the change that the legislature has undergone since the new ANC leadership took over.
Last year ANC MPs who sit on the portfolio committee on communications formed a core part of the group that interviewed and sanctioned the names that eventually made it onto the SABC board.
Even though there was a minor outcry over the previous ANC leadership altering the list of board members at the last minute, ANC MPs kowtowed to Luthuli House and submitted a final list for President Thabo Mbeki’s approval.
Following Mbeki’s defeat in Polokwane, these very same MPs have sought to reclaim their voice, crying out about the people they do not want on the board and even declaring an emotional vote of no confidence in that board.
In the home affairs portfolio committee the battle between the chairperson of the committee, Patrick Chauke, and home affairs has always been a simmering pot.
But Polokwane seems to have injected massive pressure under the pot’s lid, leading to a massive spill of hostilities into the open. Other ANC MPs who sit on the committee have seized the moment to jump onto the bandwagon.
This week the tension between the committee and home affairs director-general Mavuso Msimang reached boiling point over Msimang’s reluctance to allow provincial managers to account for their performance in Parliament. ANC MPs took the extraordinary step of summoning Home Affairs Minister Nosiviwe Mapisa-Nqakula herself to explain Msimang’s actions.
Such audacity was unheard of prior to Polokwane and the minister would have almost showed them the middle finger had the MPs tried to pull such a stunt then.
A senior official at home affairs who has observed the exchanges between the portfolio committee and the department for years says even though there have always been concerns raised about problems at home affairs, the MPs had developed a louder voice after the ANC conference.
“Chauke now seems to want to give instructions to the director-general. It looks like he is now trying to show him that he (Chauke) has more power,” the official says.
ANC MP Nathi Mthethwa agrees that what has happened since Polokwane is that a number of committee whips and chairs have made it onto the national executive committee (NEC) of the ANC and are no longer just party backbenchers.
He says these new leaders are not necessarily intimidated by members of the executive.
“Today when they speak, they speak with authority. Even where a minister is a leader and is in the NEC, the chair and other members are also leaders and not just ordinary backbenchers with no power,” he says.
Mthethwa singles out the justice portfolio committee as an example of a board that was not influenced by the realignment of power in the ANC but has always put its foot down when it comes to oversight matters.
Indeed, other notable examples of committees that have never been shy to exercise oversight include correctional services, where chair Denis Bloem waged running battles with Correctional Services Minister Ngconde Balfour way before Polokwane became fashionable.
But there are serious questions about this newfound voice and whether it will still be this loud when the new ANC leadership becomes the executive next year.
ANC NEC member and chair of the transport portfolio committee Jeremy Cronin, whose committee is known for its no-nonsense approach, is happy that MPs have found a new voice post-Polokwane.
He says for too long power lay in the hands of the state and not the party.
“When the ANC at Polokwane said there was a need to reaffirm the party as the political centre, that was a polite way of saying that in recent periods there has been too much of a technocratic dominance – a shift of power to the executive at the expense of the ANC,” he says.
He says while the Constitution affords Parliament powers equal to those of the other tiers of government – the executive and the judiciary – Parliament has been the weakest of the three arms.
Asked if this robustness will be carried through after the general elections, Cronin says this is one of the key question that the ANC and its alliance partners will have to tackle at the alliance summit.
Cronin argues that the only guarantee of that happening will be if Parliament urgently implements constitutional requirements that allow MPs to amend money bills.
At present MPs do not have the power to amend the Budget but can only debate it and decide whether to pass it or not. The Budget normally ends up being passed even though MPs raise a number of concerns about how money is spent.
Cronin says this is a major disadvantage that has resulted in Parliament being overlooked when it comes to decisions on major infrastructure, such as the Gautrain, which Cronin has always dismissed as an unnecessary extravagance.
“Parliament has to serve as the window of public transparency. But if it’s a window without any keys, then big decisions get made with just a cursory glance to Parliament,” he says.
Themba Godi, chair of Parliament’s standing committee on public accounts (Scopa) and the only chair of a committee who is not an ANC member, says Parliament’s vigilance cannot be attributed only to Polokwane.
He says Parliament has been working on a new oversight model that places a strong emphasis on accountability.
Godi says the problem has been that members of the executive are better prepared to face Parliament with an army of advisers and officials at their disposal.
“Parliament still has some way to go in terms of fulfilling its constitutional obligation of playing effective oversight over the executive. Committees are poorly resourced and MPs are also far less resourced in terms of knowledge to be able to perform proper oversight,” Godi adds.
Jonathan Faull, a researcher at democracy think-tank Idasa, says Parliament has not covered itself in glory and has in the past suffered a number of glaring inabilities, the most notable being its failure to deal with the arms deal debacle.
Faull notes, however, that over the past five months the legislature has tended to be more assertive, with MPs keen to take on ministers and senior civil servants.
“This obviously has something to do with Polokwane. Part of the critique levelled at the previous leadership of the ANC is that they had stifled debate within the ANC, so an upsurge in debate and critique is not surprising.”
He says the big question is whether this is a temporary or a permanent feature of South Africa’s political landscape.
Faull doubts it will last and argues that once the new ANC leadership ascends to executive office this kind of critique is likely to fall off.
He says the danger will be the new crop of MPs who move into Parliament next year and might want to curry favour with the new executive in return for being noticed for possible lucrative positions in future.
Faull says while MPs are elected from a party list, South Africans have to remind them that the political parties are put in power by the electorate and that MPs represent this electorate first and not just their parties.
“The political leadership should continue to assert the aspirations and the grievances of the people who elected them,” he says.
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