Desperate and divided: South Africa has had enough

By Lizette Lancaster

Increasingly, South Africans from all walks of life are mobilising for change. Many resort to public protest in the hope of galvanising government to improve its performance and do something about unacceptable levels of unemployment and poverty. Last year saw widespread community-level protests, along with large-scale student ...

The Week Ahead: Food Security, Expropriation Bill, UIF Bill & Marikana

It’s still early days and Parliament is not yet firing on all cylinders. There are no sittings scheduled in the main chambers and only a handful of meetings planned for the committee corridor. Nonetheless, there is still scope for headline-grabbing and party battles in this week's parliamentary agenda, with food ...

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 ...

Review of Parliament 2015

The 2015 parliamentary year will be remembered as one of the most dramatic and eventful. The legislature had a bumper year of court battles, internal squabbles, brinkmanship, attempts to impeach the President, riot police batting with protesters and MPs and strike action. Despite all the sideshows and distractions, Parliament still ...

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: The strike and President top the agenda

Forget the party battles and EFF gimmicks. The really titanic struggle being fought out in Parliament at the moment is between the staff and management over performance bonuses.

Workers began striking last week after accusing Parliament of reneging on a past agreement for performance bonuses to be paid based on ...

OPINION: In the interests of full disclosure

By Judith February.

It feels a little like the pot calling the kettle black.

This past week the African National Congress (ANC) was very eager to point out that certain Democratic Alliance (DA) MPs, including leader Mmusi Maimane, had failed to fully declare their interests in Parliament’s register of financial ...

Infographic: Departmental audit outcomes: 2013/14 - 2014/15

Departments and their entities are subject to annual auditing by the Auditor-General of South Africa (AGSA), where an audit opinion is given based on a department's financial statements. In forming an audit opinion, AGSA determines the financial health of departments and if its performance met its predetermined objectives and if ...

The Week Ahead: All eyes on Minister of Finance as he presents mini-budget

Committees will continue examining government departments and state entities on their 2014/15 Annual Reports in preparation of their Budgetary Review and Recommendations Reports. These reports may include proposals on the future use of resources and are a critical part of Parliament’s engagement with the budget for the following year.

The ...

The Week Ahead: Parliament's fourth term kicks off

Parliament resumes this week after a two-week constituency period. The fourth term will run for seven weeks and the programme is packed with activities. Some of the highlights include committee, oversight and legislative work; oral questions to the executive and a review of the national budget.

Later this month, the ...