Watching Parliament

What can we expect from the Eastern Cape State of the Province address for 2017? asks Zukiswa Kota

On Thursday 9 February 2017, President Jacob Zuma presented the annual State of the Nation Address (SONA) before multitudes. Within minutes of the official start, the nation witnessed a succession of rude disruptions, obscenities and subsequent violence as members of the Economic Freedom Fighters tussled with parliamentary security staff following an order for their removal from the House by the presiding officers.

Rather than portray a parliament of the people and for the people, SONA graphically revealed that blind loyalty and self-interest continue to trump accountability and oversight for one’s actions.

The Constitution requires principled and ethical leadership.

President Zuma’s clear unwillingness to accept that his conduct has been unconstitutional is yet further evidence that he is not fit to hold office.

Two days prior to the SONA, the Public Service Accountability Monitor joined Parliament Watch, a collective of nine independent civil society organisations working towards the advancement of social justice and the realisation of human rights, in host- ing discussions on the state of South Africa’s legislatures and the effectiveness of Parliament in fulfilling its oversight mandate.

Even the most cynical among us could not have predicted the chaos that would characterise the opening of the Parliament a few days later.

The overarching implications of these events highlight an urgent need for all who live in this country to become more than mere spectators as yet another pillar of this constitutional democracy is threatened.

First, though, we must watch Parliament closely.

As we draw towards the Eastern Cape State of the Province Address (SOPA) on Friday 17 February, the PSAM’s regular ‘wishlist’ for better public service delivery and improvements in public resource management and governance has been significantly whittled down.

The SOPA in an opportunity for the Premier, Phumulo Masualle, to outline the provincial government’s priorities and plans for upcoming year. It is also an opportunity to account to the public for the previous year’s performance and to address concerns raised by Eastern Cape communities.

The SOPA should in essence give the public clear insights not only into the plans of the administration but – perhaps more important – what corrective action is to be taken if pressing socio-economic needs are not being addressed by government departments.

Premier Masualle, during this sitting of the provincial legislature must make clear pronouncement on the following:

• Responsiveness to the public across the national parliament and provincial legislature spaces: committees have failed to properly address urgent issues affecting poor and marginalised people, including school infrastructure, inequitable police resourcing and women’s inequality.

We hope to see a clear articulation in the SOPA of how recurring service delivery failures in education, health and housing have been addressed and the mechanisms through which the Eastern Cape government has utilised public participation mechanisms to respond to people’s needs.

• Oversight over departments: The Parliament Watch score for the effectiveness with which parliamentarians perform oversight over government departments was 4/10. This was primarily a reflection of “… the haste with which the oversight cycles are undertaken and the lack of follow-through on issues from all political parties” according to a Parliament Watch press statement.

• We expect the Premier of the Province to clearly outline how oversight interventions in ailing departments such as the Departments of Education, Health and several under-performing municipalities have fared and what corrective action has been taken in key service delivery areas.

How much money has been spent on interventions such as the infamous Section 100 1(b) intervention into the Department of Education?

What tangible results have emanated from interventions in municipalities that continue to record high levels of irregular expenditure and grave leadership vacuums as outlined by the Auditor-General of South Africa’s findings of June 2016?

What oversight is currently in place to ensure that an already tight fiscal envelope is protected to allow resources to reach their intended beneficiaries?

• Public Access to the People’s Assembly: Parliament Watched gave the Eastern Cape Provincial Legislature a score of 4/10 for public access.

This score, reflecting not only the difficulty that members of the public often experience when accessing portfolio committee meetings but also the lack of publicly accessible minutes of committee meetings.

It is with this in mind that we urge the Premier to ensure not only that the general public have greater access to legislature in the year ahead but that the transparency with which decisions such as the imminent deinstitutionalisation of mental health patients from government-funded institutions is enhanced.

If ever there was a time to live up to the rhetoric of a “People’s Assembly” – it is now, Honourable Masualle.

• Zukiswa Kota: Head of Monitoring and Advocacy, PSAM