Gauteng Provincial Legislature committees embark on annual report process for 2015/2016 financial year

As part of implementing the Gauteng Provincial Legislature’ s( GPL) oversight and public participation mandates, portfolio committees are currently scrutinising the performance of Gauteng government departments and the GPL for the 2015/2016 financial year.

During this time the various portfolio committees review annual reports of provincial government departments, highlighting the actual performance realised against annual targets.

When interrogating reports, Committees make use of tools and methodologies that have been adopted by the South African legislative sector to ensure that legislative oversight is effective. These include the Sector Oversight Model (SOM), SMART principles, the Budget Cycle Model and the Programme Evaluation and Budget Analysis (PEBA) model.

The assessment of annual reports begins with the presentation of an analysis by a GPL researcher, which interrogates each programme priority set by a department. The process involves members of the executive council (MECs) and heads of departments, who must account for performance. The honourable speaker and secretary to the Legislature also account for GPL’s performance. Upon conclusion of assessments, chairpersons of portfolio committees of the Legislature table their considerations to the House for debate.

As part of GPL’s efforts to “Take the Legislature to the People,” portfolio committees are sched- uling public meetings in various communities around the province — affording people of Gauteng a platform to give input on the performance reports given by the provincial departments.

As service recipients to whom provincial departments must account for service delivery, it is crucial that the people of Gauteng be afforded a platform to provide input on the services they receive.