Language dispute in legislature

Translation policies take centre stage

LANGUAGE policies took centre stage in the Western Cape Provincial legislature, as members locked horns over the availability of Hansard transcripts in all three official languages of the province. Hansard transcripts are transcripts of sittings of the house and of committees, without repetitions and redundancies.

Speaker Sharna Fernandez and her department briefed the provincial standing committee on how they will spend their R130.8 million budget, which included cuts in Hansard and language services, parliamentary oversight and committees.

The ANC’s chief whip in the legislature, Pierre Uys, accused the provincial parliament of forcing members to accept English as the main language and taking away the equal rights of Afrikaans and isiXhosa.

Uys said from now on members will have to request special translations in Afrikaans and isiXhosa because the department decided it was a good cost-cutting tool.

“If your speech is in Afrikaans it will be translated in English. There won’t be an electronic transcript of all three languages because they are not going to translate it into Afrikaans and Xhosa.”

DA MPL Mark Wiley cautioned members against debating issues that have already been discussed in committees.

Wiley said the move was fully in line with language policies for the province, which are consistent with the constitution.

Reassuring members, the department’s Tshepiso Nage stressed that the official record of debate in the provincial parliament must be kept in the official languages in which the debate took place.

“If a member stands up and renders his speech in isiXhosa it will be recorded in isiXhosa, below that the English translation will come. Most of our proceedings are in English,” he said.

Nage explained that they will no longer be publishing Afrikaans and isiXhosa Hansard books.

“The Hansard will be containing, immediately when you get it as a transcript , the translation of Afrikaans into English at the bottom of the speech, and the isiXhosa into English at the bottom.”

He added that the difference now was that members would no longer be getting a compilation of the book that has been compiled and has the indexes in Afrikaans and isiXhosa.

“The book will be an English book for all intensive purposes, but speeches rendered in isiXhosa or Afrikaans will get the translation. But the main recorded speech as the member rendered it will be in isiXhosa or Afrikaans, with translations in the bottom.”

Uys said that the fact that everything will be translated into English but not into Afrikaans or Xhosa without request, was problematic.

Uys also highlighted the fact that the R4m savings from the Hansard now appears to be listed in the budget under business consultants.

DA MPL Matlhodi Maseko questioned Fernandez about whether the provincial parliament was in a crisis following media reports last year.

Fernandez denied that they were in any crisis.

“I think that there was a manufactured crisis. We have fulfilled our constitutional mandate and as a province we have done brilliantly in terms of the auditor general’s feedback.”

Fernandez stressed there was no funding to take on additional staff.

She added that rationalisation and retrenchment could still be on the cards.

“We don't know if we are going to see rationalisation or retrenchment. I do not think we will experience it at our Parliament because we have always ran a very lean outfit,” she said.

The Speaker added that regulating government spending in terms of salaries and bonuses remained a major concern, with Parliament revisiting its performance measurement systems.

THERE WON’T BE AN ELECTRONIC TRANSCRIPT OF ALL THREE LANGUAGES BECAUSE THEY ARE NOT GOING TO TRANSLATE INTO AFRIKAANS OR XHOSA