New and old MPs prepare for parliamentary duties

Yesterday, 3 June, new Members of Parliament (MPs) began a training course to learn the ins and outs of the complex legislative process and the processes and procedures of Parliament. Known as the on-boarding programme, new Members of the Fifth Parliament are given an induction, orientation and training to acquire the necessary knowledge and skills to do their work as public representatives and lawmakers.

According to the opening remarks by the NCOP Chairperson Thandi Modise, more than 50% of MPs in the National Assembly and 86% of representatives in the National Council of Provinces are new to Parliament.

“We must also ensure that the programme of Parliament is designed to effectively do the oversight, monitoring and evaluation of government departments. This is the essence of Parliament.” Modise said.

Modise also told new MPs that the sessions would be conversational and that in total, the on-boarding training programme would run for almost ten days.

People’s Assembly caught up with new MP and recently appointed Democratic Alliance spokesperson Phumzile van Damme to ask her how the training is going so far.

“It’s two days this week and two days next week. Yesterday was largely informative. We learnt about Member’s benefits and had a broad overview of various aspects of Parliament. Today is about Parliament’s legal division,” said van Damme.

The training ranges from teaching new MPs how to access Parliament's order papers, notices of announcements and tabled documents on their phones and other electronic devices, to how committees work and guidelines on drafting legislation.

Next week, new MPs would be taught about the Rules of Procedure. Van Damme said that the rookie MPs had already been given the rules to prepare for next week’s programme as well as plenty of other reading material.

Van Damme added that there were other more in-depth courses available to MPs if they wanted them.

So far van Damme said she has found the process “pretty organised” as well as “very informative” and would encourage existing MPs to sit in on some sessions as they are learning new things. She added, “I worked in Parliament for five years as a staff member [predominatly as a parliamentary reseacher and last year as Head of Parliamentary Research and Communications] but there is a lot of things I didn’t know.”

Van Damme explained that the training was run by various parliamentary staff members, as well as the chief whips.

“There is only so much Parliament can do, the largest responsibility falls to Members to inform themselves. They need to do their own research and go read, read, read,” said van Damme.

Asked how she feels about being a new MP, van Damme replied: “It’s exciting and a little bit scary. It’s a big honour and responsibility. I need to be prepared for when the real works starts and am looking forward to the debates and committee meetings”.

She said in the next few days, DA Parliamentary Leader Mmusi Maimane would announce the allocation of MPs to their respective committees.