The Week Ahead: Busy Committee & Plenary Programme

The main chambers have scheduled a broad and busy programme this week, which includes a motion of no confidence vote in the President, oral questions to the Deputy President and Social Services Cluster, a debate on the funding situation in the higher education sector as well as a joint sitting to mark Human Rights Day.

The motion against President Zuma was put forward by the DA and is the second one in recent weeks. It follows AgangSA 's controversial (and widely condemned) withdrawal of its own motion at the eleventh hour. The official opposition said its motion was motivated by the following reasons: the President's poor leadership, unemployment levels, a weak economy, corruption and the trampling of the basic rights of South Africans. The ruling party has dismissed the motion and described it as “weak and baseless”.

The Deputy President has to respond to a mixture of questions during his oral reply session on Wednesday. This includes enquiries about energy, health, poverty and social cohesion. Meanwhile, the Ministers in the Social Services Cluster get their turn to respond to oral questions afterwards. The Minister of Health will address, amongst other issues, what has been the cause of the delay of the release of the National Health Insurance (NHI) White Paper.

Elsewhere, the NCOP debate on the lack of funding in the higher education sector and how to address this is an important one to follow on Tuesday. Education experts have said that “the amount of funding available for students wanting to pursue tertiary education is inadequate and well below that of international norms in similar developing countries”. In the past few months several SRCs and university managements have sounded the alarm on this issue and even raised funds to assist those in need.

Owing to a lack of quorum, the NA was unable to pass the Division of Revenue Bill last week. MPs will get an opportunity to fix this when the Bill is up for consideration again on Tuesday.

The Committee corridor is packed with meetings. However, it has a dreary and unexciting feel as MPs continue processing budget votes. Beyond this, there are a few interesting meetings scheduled. Here are the highlights:

On Tuesday, the Minister of Communications will brief MPs on the state of the SABC, evaluation of its capacity and the current affairs.

On the same day, the the Gauteng Provincial Department of Human Settlements comes under the spotlight as MPs interrogate how its municipalities implement the Human Settlements Development Grant and Urban Settlements Development Grant.

On Wednesday, the Department of Public Enterprises will highlight the impact of the build programme, in terms of support to local businesses, skills development, job creation and beneficiation.

In addition, the Public Service Commission (PSC) will inform MPs about the financial misconduct on the non-compliance with Treasury regulations and disciplinary cases in the public sector.

The Portfolio Committee on Labour has organised a workshop on the National Minimum Wage on Friday.

In his 2014 State of the Nation Address, President Zuma requested that the idea of introducing a national minimum wage be investigated as a mechanism to alleviate poverty and inequality. The Committee hosted several workshops in Parliament and across the country since last year where it spoke to stakeholders, including labour unions, employer organisations, academics and experts. Participants differed widely and cited varying statistics and data (sometimes even contradictory) to support their position, with views ranging from non-committal, rejection, qualified support and outright support.

In between, there is some legislating as the Justice and Correctional Services Committee and Finance Committee continue deliberations on the Maintenance Amendment Bill and Banks Amendment Bill respectively.

Click here for the list of meetings for this week.