With all the Portfolio Committees meeting the deadline to finalise their Budget Vote Reports by last Friday (and some already published in the Announcements, Tablings and Committee Reports (ATC)), the focus now shifts to the budget vote debates that will commence tomorrow (Tuesday, 15 July 2014) and run for ...

The Department of Mineral Resources (DMR) this week presented its strategic plan in Parliament for the year 2014/15. Among other things, there was an emphasis on the state of miner health and safety in South Africa's mines, and the Department's Mine Health and Safety Programme which seeks to improve the ...

The South African Council for Educators (SACE) and Council for Quality Assurance in General and Further Education and Training (Umalusi) presented their budget review to the Portfolio Committee on Basic Education this week. Amid talk about insufficient budgets and under-spending, MPs raised concerns about teacher accreditation and E-marking.

During its ...

A matter of concern raised by students during the 2014 elections was the lack of employment opportunities for qualified graduates. The current skills market has undergone various changes in line with the future needs of the economy.

In the briefing by the Department of Higher Education and Training (DHET) to ...

On Wednesday, Secretary of Defence, Sam Gulube, told Members of the Defence and Military Veterans Portfolio Committee that the SA National Defence Force (SANDF) has a budget shortfall of R1.1 billion for employee’s salaries.

While a freeze on hiring, large-scale retrenchments and compulsory early retirement were being considered as a ...

In both the Transport Portfolio Committee meeting on Tuesday and an Economic and Business Development Select Committee briefing on Wednesday, the Department of Transport told MPs that the cost of repairing South Africa’s roads is estimated to be R149 billion.

Acting Director-General of the Transport Department, Mawethu Vilana, said the ...

The Select Committee on Appropriations met yesterday to receive presentations from the Committee support staff on what duties NCOP MPs are expected to carry out over their term, and how the support staff will assist them. MPs were also briefed on the budget cycle, which brought up a few concerns ...

In September 2012, a global network of parliamentary monitoring organisations (PMOs) from 38 countries converged on Rome, Italy, for the launch of the World e-Parliament Conference 2012. The conference sought to facilitate discussions between PMOs on the best means of making all Parliaments 'open'; that is, to petition Parliaments to ...

Yesterday in Parliament, Minister for Mineral Resources, Ngoako Ramatholdi, in his brief introduction to his Department’s briefing, told the Portfolio Committee on Mineral Resources that miners’ “health and safety is a priority”. He added that a Mine Health and Safety Summit hosted by his Department and others was being planned ...

Amid the budget vote presentations, the Fifth Parliament’s first deliberations on actual legislation kicked off today when the Standing Committee on Finance was briefed by National Treasury on the Development Bank of Southern Africa (DBSA) Amendment Bill. The DBSA Bill was actually tabled in the last Parliament prior to the ...