On Tuesday, the Portfolio Committee on Police heard input from the Institute for Security Studies (ISS) and the South African Policing Union (SAPU) on the South African Police Service’s budget and Annual Performance Plan for the year. Before hearing from their guests, Committee Researcher Ivan Kinnes did a brief presentation ...

Yesterday during a Department’s budget briefing to the Portfolio Committee on Rural Development and Land Reform (RDLR), firebrand EFF MP Andile Mngxitama offered the RDLR Minister, Gugile Nkwinti, the EFF’s vote in order to get a two-thirds majority to amend the Constitution to expropriate land without compensation. The Minister politely ...

Last week Wednesday, 25 June 2014, during the discussion of the Portfolio Committee on Rural Development and Land Reform’s committee programme, a robust debate was held between ANC MPs and opposition MPs about whether or not farm worker evictions should be put on the agenda as a matter of urgency. ...

Prior to 2012, the introduction of bills into Parliament were exclusively in the hands of Ministers and Members of the Executive Council (MEC). The role of an MP was to oversee the implementation of these bills all the way to the President's desk. A new ruling in late 2012 sought ...

Yesterday marked the beginning of the second week of meetings for parliamentary committees. Last week, Committees met to formally elect their Chairpersons, while this week will focus on presentations of Annual Performance Plans (APP) and Strategic Plans, as well as budget discussions. People’s Assembly attended a joint meeting of the ...

Parliamentary committees officially kicked-off last week, as Members of Parliament (MPs) gathered in their committees and elected their chairpersons for the next five years. Once introductions were made, chairpersons took their seats and many began working on their agenda for the year. Based on the committee schedule for this week, ...

As newly elected Members of Parliament will soon find out, the function of an MP is manifold. Duties range from committee service, policy debating, oversight, and even embarking on international study trips.

People's Assembly has sampled the last five calendar years (2009-2013) of Parliament, and brought you a breakdown of ...

Today in Parliament, Committees continued to elect their chairpersons. During the Portfolio Committee on Police’s meeting, the ANC’s Francois Beukman was elected unopposed as Chairperson. Beukman was the executive director of the police watchdog the Independent Police Investigative Directorate (IPID) between 2009 and 2012. Before defecting to the ANC in ...

In Parliament today a number of the National Assembly’s Portfolio Committees (PCs) met to elect their Chairpersons. As one of the few committees to have been clustered in the Fifth Parliament, People’s Assembly went along to the Justice and Correctional Services PC meeting.

Soon after being elected unopposed to the ...

Parliament is back in session and the main source of parliamentary action this week will be the election of chairpersons for National Assembly committees following the publication of committee memberships last Friday. Even though the ANC announced its list of candidates for committee chairpersons a few weeks ago, these appointees ...