Parliamentary probe into Nkandla set to begin

Parliament’s ad hoc committee is set to begin its work tomorrow following the ANC’s announcement yesterday of its 7 representatives to sit on the committee. The committee was established nearly two weeks ago by the Speaker but was unable to start until the ANC made a decision on which names to put forward. While some pointed out that this was a delaying tactic, nothing could be done as the ANC was acting in accordance with the rules, which provided that a party had 10 working days to provide names to the Speaker (the ANC’s announcement was made one day before the 10 day deadline).

Before dealing with the substantive issues, there are already two contentious points that the committee will have to deal with it. Firstly, it only has 4 working days to finalise its work as it has to report by no later than 30 April. The DA has already expressed concern that this was insufficient time to thoroughly consider the matter and has requested that the committee be extended by five more days to May 5. Furthermore, the DA is also calling for a parliamentary sitting on May 5 or 6, a day or two before the general elections for the house to consider a report of the ad hoc committee.

The second sticking point concerns the mandate of the committee. In his announcement, the Speaker stated that the ad hoc committee had been established “to consider the submissions by the President of the Republic of South Africa in response to the Public Protector’s Report and make recommendations”. According to the Daily Maverick, the President did not offer much of a response citing that he would provide Parliament with a final report on “executive interventions” after receiving the report by Special Investigations Unit. This creates a dilemma and some opposition parties have argued that the public protector’s entire report should be considered and that president as well as the relevant ministers should appear before the committee.

The 11 member committee (it was supposed to be 12 members but COPE declined to take its seat on the committee) is comprised of experienced parliamentarians who are familiar with parliamentary procedure. Some of them are either chairpersons or whips of parliamentary committees. There is no doubt that individual MPs will be watched closely over the next few days, in particular the ANC representatives, who have been described as “loyalists”. More broadly, Parliament itself will be until scrutiny- people will be watching to see if it is an independent body that can exercise effective oversight over the executive.

Update 24 April 2014: The Committee elected Cedric Frolic to chair the Committee and adopted its programme today. The next meeting is scheduled for Monday, 28 April 2013.

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