The Week Ahead: Oversight Visits, Public Hearings & Legislation

It's still early days but the legislature has planned a broad and busy programme after a low key week.

With no sittings scheduled in the main chambers, the committee corridor will again be the main source of parliamentary action this week.

Oversight visits provide committees with an opportunity to assess progress made on initiatives and test the authenticity of the information provided by governement entities. In keeping with this oversight mandate, several committees have arranged a number of visits to project and facilities across the country this week:

-The Portfolio Committee on Human Settlements will conduct a provincial visit to the Free State. The main purpose of the visit is to assess the implementation of a comprehensive, integrated human settlement strategy in the province, budget expenditure and performance in meeting service delivery targets set for the 2016/17 financial year, progress in construction of housing for military veterans and progress made on the construction of houses for destitute, special needs and vulnerable people.

-The Portfolio Committee on Trade and Industry will be visiting the National Regulator for Compulsory Specifications and factories supported by Department of Trade and Industry (DTI).

-The Portfolio Committee on Sport and Recreation plans to conduct an oversight visit in North West Province in order to assess the utilisation of the grant allocated to the province for implementing sport and recreation programmes to provide sport opportunities to communities.

-The Portfolio Committee on Basic Education will visit two education districts in KwaZulu-Natal and meet with provincial and district education officials, school governing bodies and organised labour. Several schools in the districts will also be visited.

-The Portfolio Committee on Mineral Resources will also visit several sites and projects this week.

Elsewhere, two provincial legislatures - Gauteng and Free State – have arranged hearings on the MPRDA Bill. In passing the Bill, the National Assembly noted that the consultation period in the NCOP and in the Provincial Legislatures was highly compressed and recommended that the Select Committee on Land and Mineral Resources remedy this procedural defect by starting their legislative process anew. 5 of the provinces have already held hearings. Limpopo and Northern Cape have not scheduled hearings.

The Portfolio Committee on Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs has been on the road for the past two weeks holding hearings on the Traditional and Khoisan Bill. This week, the committee will be in KZN to solicit more views.

Meanwhile, Parliament is scheduled to run an educational programme on the State of the Nation Address and the role and functions of Parliament at 14 high schools in Cape Town’s Metro South area from today.

Here is a run down of the meetings that are likely to generate the most headlines:

On Tuesday, the South African Post Office (SAPO) will brief lawmakers on implementation of the turnaround strategy and future prospects of the entity. The Post Office recorded a R1.1-billion loss in 2015/16. The public entity is still crippled by a number of issues: recent closure of more than 20 branches, unsettled labour agreements and funding to name a few.

More than 5000 rhinos have been killed in the past 8 years and an estimated 915 in 2016 alone. MPs will hear from SANParks on the efforts to curb wildlife crimes in particular the poaching and killing of Rhino’s for 2016/17.

The Portfolio Committee on Communications will discuss the progress it has made towards appointing an Interim SABC Board. In addition, ICASA will report back on the monitoring of the implementation of Compliance and Complaints Committee (CCC) ruling on SABC’s ban of violent protests. Civil society organisations had lodged a complaint with ICASA saying the SABC's decision was in violation of its role as public broadcaster.

The Minister of Finance announced in his February 2016 Budget a proposal to introduce a tax on sugar-sweetened beverages with effect from 1 April 2017 to help reduce excessive sugar intake. This follows on work initiated by the Department of Health. The proposed tax thus comes against the backdrop of a growing global concern regarding obesity stemming from overconsumption of sugar. Obesity is a global epidemic and a major risk factor for the growing burden of non-communicable diseases including heart diseases, diabetes and some cancers. Lawmakers are set to grapple with the topic during a joint meeting of the Standing Committee on Finance and Portfolio Committee on Health.

On Wednesday, SASSA will brief legislators on the progress made on implementing the Constitutional Court ruling on the bidding of the new social assistance payment tender and preparation for the institutionalisation of the grant payment system. There is skepticism and concern about whether the Agency will be able to takeover the payment of social grants to 17 million recipients.

On the same day, the rehabilitation and reintegration of parolees and ex-offenders will be in the spotlight when the Department of Correctional Services briefs MPs on its partnerships with sector stakeholders and service providers and on the and state of halfway houses.

The Select Committee on Trade and International Relations has invited the Department of Trade and Industry to brief legislators on the crisis affecting the poultry sector. In the last few months, the poultry sector has sheds thousands of jobs due to the chicken imports and there has been growing calls for more protection.

After nearly a year, two interview processes, vetting issues and political manoevouring, the Ad Hoc committee tasked with filling the National Youth Development Agency Board is finally set to recommend names for appointment. The EFF and DA have complained about the calibre of the candidates and the appointment process followed so it remains to be seen if this will derail things again.

On Thursday, the Portfolio Committee on Police will discuss the referral of the Claassen Commission report including the applicable procedure for dealing with the report as it is currently classified as confidential.

On Friday, the Constitutional Review Committee will hear from Pansalb on the status of Sepedi, Sesotho sa Leboa, Khelovhedu and the Sign Language of South Africa, who all want to be recognised as official languages.

In between, there will be some detailed legislating on a number of critical and controversial bills, which are at various stages in the legislative process. These include the Administrative Adjudication of Road Traffic Offences (AARTO) Amendment Bill; Implementation of Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court Act Repeal Bill; Draft Traditional Courts Bill; Financial Intelligence Centre (FICA) Amendment Bill and Extension of Security of Tenure Amendment Bill.

View the full schedule here.