Cabinet changes and their impact on Parliament

President Jacob Zuma announced his Cabinet on Sunday evening, 25 May, and much has been said about the appointments and omissions, and how this would affect the respective ministries. One issue that has been overlooked is what impact the new cabinet will have on Parliament and its committees.

Aside from making law, parliamentary committees are tasked with the responsibility of overseeing the Executive, which include the ministries. These can be mammoth tasks depending on which portfolio a committee oversees. For example, in the Fourth Parliament, the National Assembly’s Portfolio Committee on Justice and Constitutional Development was one of the busiest committees in Parliament, often working late into the evening to deliberate on, amend and pass multiple pieces of important legislation.

With President Zuma’s announcement that the Justice and Correctional Services portfolios will be merging “to further improve efficiency in the criminal justice system”, obvious concerns have arisen. How will an already overburdened Justice Committee handle another important portfolio? How will Parliament deal with it – will they be split into sub-committees?

In the previous Parliament, water and environmental affairs was split into sub-committees due to the demanding issues arising from the water portfolio. The same could be done for Justice and Correctional Services.

Parliament had previously resisted calls by the opposition to establish a single committee to have oversight over the Presidency. The reconfiguration of the Ministries (within the Presidency) will likely resuscitate this call that the Presidency account to the legislature in the same manner as other departments.

The lack of continuity in many portfolios will have an immediate impact on committees in two ways. Firstly, the newly installed minister will need time to find his/her feet and will claim that they can not be held accountable for the work done by the predecessor. True as it may be, this will be problematic, particularly when the departments submit their annual reports for the previous financial year in the next five months. Secondly, pending legislation initiated by the predecessor will likely be delayed or even abandoned if it does not fit in with the plans of the incoming minister.

The political head often sets the tenor of the engagement between a department and the committee overseeing it. This then cascades down to the officials within the department. Adversarial confrontation are common in scenarios where the responsible minister fails to attend meetings, is unprepared, does not reply to questions and displays an indifferent attitude.

The new Parliament affords the executive the opportunity to start with a clean slate and set the right tone. Committees also have an obligation to be constructive while playing their oversight role.

However, President’s Zuma’s Cabinet has also left a trail of confusion as certain MPs who seemed to be a shoe-in for Cabinet, seemed to be left out altogether. Former Speaker of the National Assembly, Max Sisulu, previous Minister of Communication, Yunus Carrim, and former Minister of Correctional Services, S’bu Ndebele, are just a few examples of individuals who fall into this category. Even though they failed to be part of the executive, they can still make a huge contribution, perhaps as chairpersons of committees or even ordinary MPs.