Mashatile vows to crack whip
Deputy president Paul Mashatile, as leader of government business, has vowed to crack the whip against ministers who fail to account to parliament.
The leader of government business is responsible for the interaction between the executive and parliament.
In his first question-andanswer session with MPs in the National Assembly on Thursday, Mashatile was also questioned about municipal debt to Eskom which at end-December totalled R56.3bn and is rising.
He said the Treasury was preparing a circular under the Municipal Finance Management Act dealing with the government’s relief strategy for debt to Eskom. The circular is to be released later this month for implementation expected on April 1. He did not provide details, but generally repeated the plans announced by President Cyril Ramaphosa in his state of the nation address.
Ramaphosa said the Treasury had a plan that would involve installing prepaid meters to ensure payment of electricity bills to municipalities.
The question-and-answer session was delayed for about 50 minutes after the fire alarm went off. National Assembly speaker Nosiviwe MapisaNqakula
told the house the capacitor of a light in the Good Hope building overheated, making the light cover smoke. This triggered the smoke detector, setting off the fire alarm. No damage was caused.
Mashatile undertook there would be consequences for ministers who did not respond in writing to MP questions as the executive had to be held accountable to parliament.
“We are not going to compromise on that [accountability],” he said. “Members of the executive have a constitutional obligation to avail themselves to respond to questions for oral reply, appear before relevant portfolio committees and attend plenaries.”
He was answering a question by DA chief whip Siviwe Gwarube who complained that ministers routinely failed to attend National Assembly plenaries to answer questions. They sent deputy ministers who were not suited to answering questions. When they did appear, “ministers often give inadequate answers to questions, making a mockery of the oversight function of parliament”, she said.
Mashatile noted that the number of lapsed questions by ministers fell under former deputy president David Mabuza from 405 in 2019 to 83 by end2022 and his goal is to reduce this to zero. It will take time as some questions related to stateowned enterprises (SOEs) or agencies cause delays in getting information. One way of dealing with this would be to set deadlines for the SOEs and agencies.
Ministers with more than 10 unanswered questions for written reply are required to inform him, and supply reasons and remedial action. This information is presented fortnightly at cabinet meetings. This resulted in the improvement and Mashatile said he will continue to submit such reports to the cabinet.
He said it was premature to judge whether the Phala Phala saga had undermined government efforts to combat crime and corruption as investigations were still under way. “We simply do not have sufficient information to reach informed conclusions at this stage.”
The president committed to co-operate fully with investigations and is not being shielded. “The fact that public institutions can without hindrance investigate the affairs of no less a figure than the president of the republic speaks volumes about the strength of our democracy.”
He said it would not be possible to compensate the families of those who died in hospital as a result of load-shedding as it affects many people and this would “open a can of worms”. The government cannot afford to compensate everyone, he said.