Ms Tarnia Baker (DA)

What is your political background? How did you come to join your political party and become an MP? I got involved with the Democratic Alliance in 2010 as a volunteer and loved it. One thing led to another and in the 2011 local elections I stood as a ward candidate, won the ward and so began my political journey as a councillor. I loved every aspect of my work both in council and the community and so in 2013 when the party invited applicants to apply for the 2014 national elections, I thought I would apply just for the experience of it all. I ended up working very hard and was thus successful in getting a seat as a Member of Parliament in the National Assembly. As they say, the rest is all history.

What does your job as an MP entail? My role as an MP is two pronged in that I have my parliamentary work as well as party duties in my home province to fulfill as well. At Parliament I am the deputy shadow minister of Water and Sanitation. The committee work is very in depth and requires many hours of research and reading in order to stay abreast of the committee work. It also involves establishing a network with professionals and experts in the water industry. Apart from the committee oversight, I conduct many of my own site visits around the country. As far as the party goes, I am the head of the Govan Mbeki and Lekwa constituencies in Mpumalanga, my home province.

What are you finding most challenging about the Fifth Parliament? As this is my first term of office I don’t have anything to compare it to by way of personal experiences. However, I do find the “robust” nature of parliamentary sittings waste a lot of time and unfortunately diminishes the importance of the debates and discussions of what is essentially the very important work of Parliament.

What obstacles prevent Parliament from doing its work and how would you fix it? The lack of attention given to oral question sessions by the Ministers is problematic. The fact that many of them don’t attend sittings is deplorable. The Ministers should be harshly penalised for no-shows at sittings and committees.

Which constituency office have you been assigned to? Can you give examples of constituency work you engaged in? Govan Mbeki and Lekwa in Mpumalanga. My role is to provide support to my councillors and the volunteers and members of the party. I assist my councillors with public meetings and in preparation for council meetings, amongst other things.

Does Parliament do a good job of holding the Executive to account? If not, what can be done to improve this? Definitely not. The Executive do not treat their responsibilities to Parliament and therefore South Africa with the seriousness it deserves. Very little is done to hold them accountable for the performance of their departments. The code of ethics needs to be more stringently applied.

Are you happy with the proportional representation system or are you in favour of electoral reform? I think the proportional representation system is adequate.

Is Parliament’s public participation model adequate/robust enough that it affords enough public participation before a law is passed? In principle yes, but in practice no. It is merely a tick box exercise.

What are you passionate about? This applies both in a political/professional arena as well as personally? I love my country, I think we live in a very beautiful part of the world but I am most saddened by the extent of the environmental degradation I see everywhere I go. Unfortunately there appears to be a total disregard for the preservation of our beautiful countryside. The amount of pollution I see, be it from personal waste to raw sewerage being discharged into our rivers makes me very sad indeed. I think there’s so much potential for us as a nation to create more jobs in the tourism industry. Much more can be done to preserve and promote our natural heritage before its too late.

What is your message to South Africans? Together we are stronger. As the saying goes, there’s so much more which unites us than divides us. We should not allow all the negative influences to tear us apart as a nation, and sow seeds of division within our people, just to serve the means of a particular group of selfish people. South Africa is definitely worth fighting for, worth saving from the stranglehold of greed and corruption.

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