The Week Ahead: Budget debates and 'Taking Parliament to the People' dominate

For the past two weeks committees have been meeting with departments and entities to pore over their strategic and annual performance plans, budgets and performance targets and prepare reports for consideration by the House.

The focus now shifts to the budget vote debates that commence tomorrow and run until 12 ...

The Week Ahead: Drama as New Term Kicks off

Parliament resumes this week after a two-week constituency period. The second term will run for 8 weeks and its culmination will trigger several weeks of campaigning ahead of the municipal elections.

The programme is packed with activities. Some of the highlights include committee, oversight and legislative work; oral questions to ...

Parliament and the Budget

Each year Parliament authorises taxes and public expenditure which provides the Government with the money it needs to deliver its policies and run vital services in areas such as Health, Education and Defence. The Budget allocates money between the three spheres of government (national, provincial, local) based on revenue collected. ...

Infographic: Parliamentary Calendar 2016

The first term of Parliament (26 January to 24 March 2016) will see the first major event of the year, the State of the Nation Address (SONA) delivered by President Zuma on 11 February 2016. The President will deliver the speech to a special joint sitting of the National Assembly ...

The Week Ahead: Farewells, loose ends and tussles

The constituency period beckons, with MPs due to depart at the end of the week and return to Parliament next year. But a fair amount of heavy-duty business will be done before they go.

It's a big week in the NA chamber with MPs scheduled to sit for long hours ...

The Week Ahead: Question sessions, higher education & legislation

It's a big week in the NA chamber with MPs scheduled to sit for long hours to consider several bills and assorted committee reports.

The major plenary highlights will be the question sessions involving the Ministers in the Social Services Cluster and the Deputy President on Wednesday and Thursday respectively. ...

The Week Ahead – The end of Parliament's second term looms

It's a week of farewells, loose ends and tussles…

The constituency period beckons, with MPs due to depart at the end of the week and return to Parliament on 21 July 2015. But a fair amount of heavy-duty business will be done before they go.

It's a big week in ...

Start at Speaker of Parliament Baleka Mbete for more open House

By Judith February

President Jacob Zuma comes to Parliament to answer oral questions again on Thursday. Last week’s budget vote debates left much to be desired as MPs seemed more intent on name-calling than debating the challenges facing SA.

Despite mounting evidence to the contrary, Speaker of Parliament Baleka Mbete ...

The Week Ahead: Presidency’s budget vote takes centre stage

MPs will be relieved that the grueling budget vote schedule is nearing the end. This process began in February with the training of MPs on the processing of the budget votes and was followed by committees meeting with various departments and entities on their strategic plans, annual performance plans and ...

The Week Ahead: Packed plenary programme and committee corridor

Parliament has scheduled a broad and busy programme in the main chambers as well as in the committee corridor.

The President’s oral question session in the NCOP (on Thursday) is the main plenary event. His responses to questions on the recent xenophobic attacks and the Report on Farlam Commission of ...