Who calls our West Wing to account?

President Cyril Ramaphosa is scheduled to appear in the National Assembly this week to answer MPs’ questions, which are expected to centre on Covid-19 corruption.

It will be his second appearance before parliament since he declared a state of disaster and put SA under lockdown in March.

The president stands accused in some quarters of not being transparent enough about the government’s decisions in response to the pandemic.

Since the confirmation of the first case of the coronavirus in this country, he has on several occasions addressed the nation.

The evening addresses have been described by critics as monologues, as Ramaphosa does not subject his decisions to scrutiny by taking questions from members of the fourth estate.

“Bishop Ramaphosa. He speaks and is never subjected to interrogation by the media. Like the Pope, so he is treated. Mxm,” EFF MP Mbuyiseni Ndlozi tweeted in July.

South African presidents are not fond of press conferences or engaging the media.

This is why journalists grab every opportunity to throw questions at Ramaphosa whenever he steps out of the Union Buildings.

It took doorstepping to get Ramaphosa to express his unhappiness about one of his ministers who had breached lockdown regulations by visiting a friend for lunch when social visits had been banned.

When he met journalists in May, under the auspices of the South African National Editors Forum, Ramaphosa undertook to have regular interactions with the media.

Three months later, he’s yet to deliver on that promise.

So that leaves parliament as one of the few constitutional mechanisms available to hold Ramaphosa and his cabinet accountable.

Parliamentary rules require the president to appear before the National Assembly four times a year to answer MPs’ questions.

Some may point at Thursday’s once-in-awhile session as an example of the legislature’s oversight of the presidency.

They may not mention that it’s been over a decade since former DA leader Tony Leon called for the establishment of an oversight committee that would hold the presidency and the president to account.

There has never been a parliamentary committee to which the presidency accounts for the money allocated to it.

Only in the fifth parliament was a compromise reached: it saw the department of monitoring & evaluation in the presidency, led by minister Jackson Mthembu, accounting to the portfolio committee on public service & administration.

The matter was resurrected at the beginning of the sixth parliament in July last year, with the DA and Inkatha Freedom

Party saying it was a constitutional imperative to have such a structure.

In their arguments, the parties cited the Constitutional Court ruling on the Nkandla matter, which found that the National Assembly had failed in its constitutional duty to conduct oversight on the president. But, in its wisdom, the EFF objected.

“It was a case of proper hypocrisy and grandstanding,” said Ndlozi, shooting down the idea.

He argued that those demanding that Ramaphosa should reduce the size of his cabinet can’t demand more oversight committees in parliament.

But the grandstanding only serves to inhibit the institution’s ability to hold the president accountable.

The president stands accused in some quarters of not being transparent enough