Question NW3165 to the Minister of Human Settlements
15 December 2017 - NW3165
Mokause, Ms MO to ask the Minister of Human Settlements
(1)What are the details including the ranks of service providers and/or contractors from which (a) her department and (b) the entities reporting to her procured services in the past five years; (2) what (a) service was provided by each service provider and/or contractor and (b) amount was each service provider and/or contractor paid; (3) (a) how many of these service providers are black-owned entities, (b) what contract was each of the black-owned service providers awarded and (c) how much was each black-owned service provider paid?
Reply:
Honourable Member, in accordance with the established practise applicable to parliamentary questions contained in the document titled, “Guide to Parliamentary Questions in the National Assembly”, I will not be able to provide names of the service providers as requested. The document referred to prohibits Members of Parliament, including the Executive, from divulging names of persons, bodies when asking or responding to parliamentary questions. It specifically states the following:
“Questions are to be framed as concisely as possible. All unnecessary adjectives, references and quotations are omitted. Names of persons, bodies and, for example, newspapers are only used in questions if the facts surrounding the case have been proven. As the mere mention of such names could be construed as publicity for or against them, it should be clear that this practice is highly undesirable. If a question will be unintelligible without mentioning such names, the Departments concerned are notified of the name (-s) and this phrase is used: ".......a certain person (name furnished)”
In addition, to spend time sourcing information for the past five financial years will take time and it would not be prudent to spend resources on a project such as this one. The Honourable Member is, however, encouraged to provide me with specific areas of concern that she might have in respect of any service provider used by my Department and the entities reporting to me.