Speaker, the Financial Management of Parliament Act was passed in 2009 to regulate the House's financial assets and, as the chairperson indicated, the procurement of goods and services.
The Act integrates various processes such as budgeting, procurement and the financial system.
The courts, as correctly stated, asked Parliament to make an uncontroversial amendment to the law to resolve the question around the financial management of provinces. The committee did this without any problems.
Unfortunately this presented an opportunity to the majority of members on the committee to look at an unrelated aspect of the Bill with regard to an oversight mechanism. The mechanism, and this is our view, would be a committee of Parliament with all the powers of Parliament and with membership from the parties decided in the normal way.
It would be one of the most important committees in Parliament. I say "most important", Speaker, because the oversight mechanism would for the first time give us, as members, a direct oversight over Parliament's finances.
However, unfortunately - and it needs to be noted - this committee has not been established in the past four years, meaning that Parliament has not fulfilled its obligations under the law. To remedy this, the DA proposed that we insert a clause forcing the establishment of the oversight mechanism.
This was voted out by a majority of members of the committee, but they did not vote out - unfortunately - a proposal that a committee resolves a provision in the existing law that prevents the Secretary and the Speaker from sitting on the Oversight Mechanism Committee.
Let me remind the members of the House that this committee is meant to have oversight over the Secretary to Parliament and the Speaker, which is why the MPs who drafted the 2009 Bill specifically excluded them from sitting on the committee.
The valid question is: How can people we are overseeing sit on the committee which does the oversight? Deputy Speaker, I therefore urge all members in the House to vote against this Bill, which compromises our ability to do effective oversight over our own institution.
Today we have an opportunity to set an example in terms of effective oversight in establishing the oversight committee and ensuring that the Speaker and the executive committee are not present in the oversight mechanism. I thank you. [Applause.]