Parliament found wanting
It’s abdicated its oversight role but there’s light at the end of the tunnel
THE rumours (or fake news from the dirty tricks department?) late last week of a possible cabinet reshuffle, and the baseless targeting, yet again, of Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan, have created jitters in the markets, and the rand has lost some of the gains of the new year. In the reckless, ruthless path of vengeance and vendettas, the interests of the country and its citizens become irrelevant.
President Jacob Zuma has demonstrated once again that he is not capable of uniting the fractured factions of the ANC, let alone putting South Africa first. As former Robben Island prisoner and ANC veteran, Andrew Mlangeni, has argued, “you can’t lead a country when you are divided”.
A key question is who or what holds politicians (MPs, ministers, presidents) accountable? In constitutional democracies this role is normally performed by Parliament (the engine room of government), where laws are promulgated.
In South Africa the “role of Parliament includes the promotion of the values of human dignity, equality, non-racialism, non-sexism, the supremacy of the constitution, universal adult suffrage and a multi-party system of democratic government. It upholds our citizens’ political rights, the basic values and principles governing public administration, and oversees the implementation of constitutional imperatives”. Sadly, Parliament has failed to uphold these lofty ideals.
In addition to passing laws, Parliament has to scrutinise and oversee the work of the executive to ensure that they are publicly accountable. The executive is headed by the president and comprises the cabinet (ministers), supported by their respective administrative bureaucracies.
During the first five years of the Mandela presidency, Parliament was understandably immersed in developing new legislation. A major problem in South Africa is that Parliament has since abdicated its responsibility to hold presidents and cabinet ministers accountable, and who have basically operated as laws unto themselves.
Former DA MP, Raenette Taljaard, argued that up to the year 2000 Parliament was an “enthusiastic interrogator of government spending, but now is a mere rubber stamp for cabinet decisions… and has barely survived the ferocity of the consequent assault on the values and ideals of our democracy… The stunting of Parliament’s oversight role, which continues to plague the institution to this day, is all part of this legacy”.
In 2000 Parliament’s standing committee on public accounts (Scopa), which included the ANC’s Andrew Feinstein, supported a multi-agency investigation into the controversial arms deal. However, Feinstein was given a drubbing by senior ANC leaders, including Minister in the Presidency Essop Pahad, who “launched into a ferocious diatribe, spluttering ‘Who the f*** do you think you are, questioning the integrity of the government, the ministers and the president?’”
A disturbing trend has emerged where the ANC government tends to reward those implicated in corrupt maladministration. In October 1996 the New York Times argued that the ANC “often prizes loyalty over honesty and closes ranks around the accused while slurring the accuser”. Professor Themba Sono argued that: “There are people trying to pretend that what is going on is nothing but the birth pangs of democracy. But that is very dangerous.”
For example, in response to the Sarafina corruption scandal, rather than reprimanding Minister Nkosazana Dlamini Zuma, the ANC majority in Parliament noted “the commendable work that the minister had done in the transformation of the health sector and the determined endeavours of the ministry to fight the HIV/ Aids epidemic”.
Parliament did not challenge Thabo Mbeki’s HIV/Aids denialism which resulted in an estimated 330 000 preventable deaths. Furthermore, 35 000 babies were born HIV positive, and this could have been avoided if the mothers had access to antiretrovirals.
Another example would be the Travelgate scandal, exposed in July 2004 by the Sunday Times, where MPs defrauded the state by abusing travel vouchers in cahoots with some unethical travel agents. Parliament refused to disclose the identities of the perpetrators, arguing that this “would amount to the unreasonable disclosure of information”. However, disclosing such information would be in the best public interest. MPs of different political parties were involved, although the majority were from the ANC, including Siyabonga Cwele, Lulu Xingwana, Bathabile Dlamini and Nosiviwe Mapisa-Nqakula. A total of 79 MPs were implicated, but only six were prosecuted. Not one was expelled from Parliament or their political parties. Some promised to pay back the money, but Parliament ultimately wrote off R12 million owed by MPs involved in the Travelgate fraud.
In the Nkandla matter, in March 2016 the Constitutional Court ruled: “The National Assembly’s resolution based on the (police) minister’s findings exonerating the president from liability is inconsistent with the Constitution and unlawful.” Yet another damning indictment on the failure of Parliament to hold the executive to account.
However, against the background of the doom and gloom, there is a ray of hope and light at the end of the long, dark tunnel. The recent Parliamentary investigation into the SABC fiasco, and the robust debates relating to the Financial Intelligence Centre (FIC) Bill, suggest that Parliament is beginning to take its oversight responsibilities more seriously, without fear or favour.
The Parliamentary ad hoc committee probing the crisis at the SABC, chaired astutely by the ANC’s Vincent Smith, revealed how this structure could reclaim its oversight role and hold the executive to account. SABC board members, current and past chairpersons, and Minister Faith Muthambi received a public roasting.
There were amazing revelations, including: The SABC funded some of the Gupta’s ANN7 TV station’s breakfast programmes, the “SABC 8” journalists who were fired by the corporation and subsequently reinstated received death threats, Minister Muthambi influenced Hlaudi Motsoeneng’s appointment as chief operating officer; and there was a reign of fear and terror at the SABC.
On November 30, President Zuma referred the FIC Bill back to Parliament (after mulling over it for six months), because of misgivings that it would not pass constitutional muster. Yunus Carrim, ANC MP and chairperson of the standing committee on finance, responded: “Parliament is not going to tremble and buckle just because the president’s lawyers said it’s unconstitutional. If the presidency’s lawyers are wrong, they’re wrong.”
The FIC “seeks to strengthen regulations that deal with money laundering and illicit financial transactions by bringing South Africa into line with standards set by the global Financial Action Task Force”. The goal is to “counter money laundering, the international finance of terror and illicit cross-border flows of money.”
Jimmy Manyi, head of the Progressive Professional Forum, argued that unidentified forces would use the FIC to humiliate and blacklist ANC donors “so that when we get to 2019 the ANC is as broke as hell”. If the FIC bill is not approved, then SA may ultimately become bankrupt, but Manyi is not known for putting the interests of the country first. The EFF’s Floyd Shivambu claimed that “the Saxonwold platforms” and “New Age (Gupta newspaper) editorials argue that the bill must not be passed”.
The deputy chairman of Business Leadership South Africa (BLSA), Bonang Mohale, aptly summed up the implications: “The only people who have any reason to be concerned about these amendments to an already existing act are criminals, thieves and terrorists… This is a war between those who stand for good and those who choose to stand for evil.”