Speech by Chairperson of National Council of Provinces, Honourable Thandi Ruth Modise, on Occasion of Debate on Budget Vote of Parliament, 22 July 2014

Briefing

22 Jul 2014

Chairperson of National Council of Provinces, Honourable Thandi Ruth Modise, on Occasion of Debate on Budget Vote of Parliament, 22 July 2014

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Honourable Deputy Chairperson
Honourable Delegates
Fellow South Africans

The passage from winter to the next season is accompanied by changes in the environment, [especially part of our flora]. These changes also affect humans in varied ways, with many succumbing to the most opportunistic of ailments of these times. Those that survive this transitional period without any hassles, often, walk about with squared shoulders out of celebration of the sign of better health they would have just received.

We then get reminded that whilst some amongst us may be celebrating the fortunes of life, many of our people have no ability and sound reason to celebrate as their social conditions remain a constant reminder that their turn is yet to come. In cajoling those who celebrate better health to take a moment to consider the weak and ill, so too, should we as leaders also find time to reconnect ourselves with the basics of what defines our collective humanity.

We meet under very difficult conditions which have engulfed the peoples of the Gaza Strip and Israel. It cannot be justified that in a world that has embraced peace, democracy and self-determination, we see the wanton destruction of property and killings of innocent people especially children and women in the name of any ideology, religion or principle. Similarly, it cannot be justified that in a world that seeks to establish a modicum of global peace, we witness the disappearance and or shooting down of planes as experienced by the people of Malaysia. We join the rest of the world to call upon all belligerent forces from both sides of the divide, across all corners of the world to prioritise peace and collective coexistence without which we are likely to fail to meet the full characteristics of being truly human.

Fellow members, sons and daughters of our soil, our democratic system is also anchored on various institutions which see to it that the will of our people is realised. This institution, the National Council of Provinces, distinguishes itself amongst the pivotal voices which are, matter-of-factly, qualified to be regarded as custodians of our constitutional democracy. We find it in better health owing to the industrious services of our predecessors. They have made sure that the requisite instruments are put in place so that even when they are gone, the system would be able to provide our people with the desired services. I thank them for their roles and hope that from wherever they are, they shall have time to share with us some of the ideas they might develop over time. 

The Budget Vote of Parliament provides an opportunity to reflect on the mandate of the People's Parliament, its role in transforming society as well as achievements and attendant challenges. Of significance is that this year's presentation takes place 20 years into our democracy. 

In line with this year's theme of Celebrating 20 Years of a Democratic Parliament, we accordingly must reflect on the journey we have travelled since 1994 and consider what resources we need to move our country forward.

However, before I do so, I wish to take this opportunity to pay tribute to the late Hon Nosipho Ntwanambi, a Member of this Parliament and former Chief Whip of this House, whom we laid to rest in Gugulethu last Saturday. Hon Ntwanambi passed away after a long period of ill-health. She played a huge role in the advancement of the cause of our democratic Parliament.

Also, last Saturday, a long-serving official of this Parliament who worked as Administrative Officer in the office of the Secretary to the NCOP, Mr Zuko Bikwana, was laid to rest in his place of birth at Mkanzi location, Engcobo, Eastern Cape. Mr Bikwana, who succumbed to cancer, had served Parliament for 20 years. He joined the parliamentary service in May 1994.

The news of the passing on of both Hon Ntwanambi and Mr Bikwana came a few weeks after we lost Mr Michael Coetzee, the Secretary to Parliament, following a long battle with cancer. May the souls of these exemplary South Africans, who played different but complimentary roles in building our country, rest in eternal peace.

Deputy Chairperson, Parliament is tasked with the responsibility to represent the people, to ensure government by the people under the Constitution, and to represent the provinces in the national sphere of government. It does this by, among other things, providing a national forum for the public consideration of issues, passing legislation, and scrutinising and overseeing executive action. This mandate is entrenched in the Constitution.

After 20 years we need to examine the extent to which we have succeeded in furthering this mandate. Efforts to transform society and to establish democratic practice by Parliament included, among other things:

  1. Repealing of apartheid legislation and introducing transformational laws;
  2. Entrenching democracy and establishing institutions to support it;
  3. Promoting reconciliation, unity and nation building;
  4. Passing legislation to transform the education, security, judicial and the health sectors and to advance the interests of workers;
  5. Entrenching transparency by opening up parliamentary proceedings and passing legislation promoting access to information to empower citizens;
  6. Promoting gender equality and passing legislation to support such efforts, better scrutiny of Bills and legislative reviews, support and promotion of interests of vulnerable groups; and
  7. Promoting South Africa’s standing among the nations of the world
     

Having laid the basis for transformation, there was a need to ensure sound governance and effective service delivery by the executive. This task must define the second decade of the democratic Parliament.

Systems and mechanisms have been put in place. These include systems and mechanisms for enhancing public participation, co-operative government and participation in international relations. As a consequence the third Parliament saw the development of the Oversight and Accountability Model and the Money Bills Amendment Procedure and Related Matters Act to strengthen Parliament’s oversight role. 

The crafting of the new vision of Parliament in 2005, which is to build an effective people’s Parliament that is responsive to the needs of the people and that is driven by the ideal of realising a better quality of life for all the people of South Africa, provided the necessary frame for the articulation of the work of Parliament..

The Members of the fifth Parliament have a lot to do in setting this institution on a trajectory to fulfil the dream of a better South Africa we envisioned in 1994.

As we present the proposed budget of Parliament for 2014-15, we wish to highlight some of the work done by the fourth Parliament to strengthen the capacity of Parliament to carry out its mandate. This is so because while this is the first budget of the fifth Parliament, in reality it is a carryover budget from the fourth Parliament.

In recognition of the fact that the legislation that we pass has a significant impact on our citizens, Parliament committed itself to enhancing public involvement in its processes to ensure that the people, including the most vulnerable in our society, are served by the laws we pass.

The subject matter of legislation has become more and more sophisticated and highly technical. Thus our Parliament and Members must become more empowered and resourced to enhance efficiency in the lawmaking process. To this end, the fourth Parliament took a number of corrective measures to ensure that our laws were in keeping with the letter and spirit of the Constitution.

These measures included:

  1. The establishment of the Legislative Drafting Unit. Already the unit has assisted Members of Parliament and Committees on 19 Private Member’s Bills (11 of which were introduced), 2 Committee Bills and the Supply Chain Management Regulations for Parliament.
  2. The unit has also developed lists of legislation that require amendments based on Constitutional requirements, Constitutional Court judgments, public opinion or gaps identified while assisting Committees.

Also, going forward we will see a bigger role being played by the Budget Office in support to committees on matters of fiscal and financial discipline.

Key among other tools for the exercise of oversight are questions to members of the Executive. In this regard, the National Council of Provinces has seen an increase in the number of questions posed to the Executive compared to previous years. A total of 843 questions were put to the Executive (6 to President, 11 to Deputy President, 179 to Ministers for oral reply and 647 questions for written reply). A total of 827 responses were received (representing 98% response rate for the year under review).

We have learnt that over the years some of the challenges were the time taken for response to written questions, which mainly has been as a result of questions being wrongly posed to a Minister and having to be redirected to the correct Minister. We are going to review our rules to ensure that sufficient time is allocated for questions in order to capacitate the oversight role of the NCOP.

Indications are that the fourth Parliament has seen a tremendous improvement in the nature of debates held in the NCOP. In particular, reports suggest that the majority of debates have been sponsored by Members and provinces. Most of them were dealing with provincial and local government issues, which is in keeping with the constitutional mandate of the NCOP, that is, to ensure that provincial interests are taken into account in the national sphere of government.

This is important as we need to ensure that at all times we fulfil the mandate of this House. It is because of this that we recently convened a workshop to re-orientate ourselves. Our strategic approach must be informed by the fact that we have a different mandate. The support to our structures must be informed by that.

The imminent finalisation of the Public Participation Model provides a unique opportunity to enhance public participation initiatives to further establish the bond with the people. The model will give us great advantage considering that our predecessors operated without one.

In relation to the need to ensure a dynamic relationship with the provinces, it is worth noting that there is strong co-operation and collaboration among all the legislatures. We intend to work together even closer in the interest of strengthening the South African Legislative Sector jointly and legislatures individually.

In the area of international relations, the fourth Parliament undertook to increase its participation and engagement. This saw Parliament being actively involved in bilateral and multilateral relations over the past financial year.

It is against this background that in September 2013 the South African Parliament hosted the 59thCommonwealth Parliamentary Conference with the theme: “Effective Solutions to the Developmental Challenges of the Commonwealth”.

We have also seen positive moves in enhancing the role of our regional and continental bodies.

As such, we welcome the recent developments in transforming the Southern African Development Community-Parliamentary Forum into a Regional Parliament. Also recently, the African Union (AU) approved the revised Protocol to the Treaty Establishing the African Economic Community relating to the Pan-African Parliament. This means that the Pan-African Parliament will have full legislative powers and exercise

oversight in the work of the AU.

As you are aware, at present, the continent continues to be faced by insecurity, instability and the lack of peace, in light of the conflicts in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and the Central Africa Republic, as well as acts of terror in Nigeria, Somalia and Kenya. We therefore need to support the parliaments of these countries so as to become the midwives of people-centred reconciliation, democracy and development.

To achieve this will require, among other things, strengthening the capacity of the support that is provided to our Members by our International Relations and Protocol Division.

Critical in this regard will be the finalisation of the institutional restructuring process. The process needs to be aligned to the strategic plan of the fifth Parliament to ensure optimal efficiency and efficacy. We have a responsibility to ensure that the work environment in Parliament promotes performance excellence.

The Budget we are presenting is intended to assist us to achieve these goals. Among other things, we require these resources for purposes of:

  1. Dealing with the legacy issues of the fourth Parliament that have been carried over to the fifth Parliament.
  2. Ensuring the implementation of the National Development Plan, especially with regard to enhancing the capacity of the state, and promoting leadership and partnerships throughout society.
  3. Creating a closer working relationship with local government and specifically with the broader South African Legislative Sector and the Speakers’ Forum; and,
  4. Political party support, Members’ training and capacity building.

The following represent the actual budget allocations in the current budget, bringing it to the total budget estimate to R1.99 billion:

  • The allocation for Programme 1: Administration is R442 million which equates to an increase of 8 per cent.
  • The allocation for Programme 2: Legislation and Oversight is R361 million, which equates to 4 per cent increase relative to the previous financial year.
  • The allocation for Programme 3: Public and International Participation, which amounts to growth of 11 per cent relative to the previous financial year.
  • The budget allocation for Programme 4: Members' Facilities is R349 million, which equates to 6 per cent growth.
  • The allocation for Programme 5: Associated Services is R 349 million, which equates to 5 per cent growth.

In addition to the budget of the five programmes, Parliament has a budget of R 481 million, a direct charge to the National Revenue Fund, as a provision for Members' remuneration. This equates to 6 per cent growth relative to last year’s budget.

Over the five financial years of the fourth Parliament, the institution performed reasonably well in audit outcomes by receiving unqualified audit findings with some few emphases of matter. In the fifth parliamentary term, we want to improve this record in order to lead by example especially given our constitutional responsibility of overseeing the Executive. We must go beyond the focus on financial information to performance outcomes. Towards this, we will soon finalise the process of appointing the Secretary to Parliament to assist in this regard.

Deputy Chairperson, our immediate task is to develop the policy imperatives in order to pave the way for the crafting of the strategic plan and other planning and budgeting instruments for the fifth Parliament. This is in order to set out clear objectives that will help us ensure alignment between the broader political agenda and our plans. Consultations in this regard will start soon. We call upon the political parties to prepare for this process.

In terms of the Financial Management of Parliament Act, the Secretary to Parliament must develop and table a strategic plan within six months after a new term of Parliament has commenced.

In preparation for the engagements, it may be necessary to start asking ourselves questions. For instance:

 

  1. If we are to strengthen oversight and accountability, building on the work of the previous parliaments, how can we ensure that the quality of our work leads to the enhancement of the pace and quality of service delivery as well as a positive impact on the lives of our people?
  2. If we are to enhance public involvement and participation, how do we ensure that the interest and expectations of the people drive the work of Parliament, with parliamentarians serving as critical agents in deepening democracy with increased effectiveness and efficiency in the conduct of constituency work?
  3. If we are to continue to improve and champion co-operative government, how can we ensure that our collective efforts result in increased level of co-operation among the spheres of government and state organs, thus leading to more effective and efficient delivery of services?
  4. If we are to play a meaningful role in international affairs as a sovereign state among the family of nations, what can we do to influence geo-political discourse in order to fight poverty and inequality?
  5. If we are to ensure that we promote general effectiveness and efficiency of Parliament, what governance and other systems must we have in place so as to support the overall work of Parliament?
  6. Lastly, if we are to build national unity and social cohesion, what role can Members of Parliament play in connecting with the general populace of our country to build a sense of social and economic solidarity and forging a common future for all?

Fellow members, we owe it to the people of South Africa to make this Parliament work. It may well be that to achieve that we might need to put aside our differences and unite in pursuit of the common good.

Yes, as the late first President of our democratic nation, Ntate Nelson Mandela reminded us in Kliptown, Soweto, in 2008: “It is so easy to break down and destroy. The heroes are those who make peace and build”.

I have made peace with the fact that the ever-changing Cape Town weather builds deeper resilience in the bodies of the dwellers of this place. Unlike many from various parts of our country, we get to see more seasons in a day and instead of moaning about it, we celebrate these rare exposure and experience. Odd weather conditions make one stronger provided he or she is able to take lessons from.

I take time to learn from mine with the sole intention to improve for the better. With your collective support, nothing about us can be above our common ability to have our tomorrow get better than our yesterday.

Fellow Members, I recommend for your approval the budget of Parliament which is intended to continue to deepen democracy as part of developing our nation.

Thank you

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