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 ...

Budget 2016: How will it be spent?

The Minister of Finance, Pravin Gordhan delivered the 2016 Budget Speech on Thursday 24 February. The speech focused on decreasing government expenditure, raising tax revenues and preventing a ratings downgrade. The Minister announced a cut in the expenditure ceiling by R10 billion but there is an increase in spending in ...

Infographic: SASSA Beneficiaries

The South African Social Security Agency (SASSA) presented its 2014/15 annual report to the Portfolio Committee on Social Development on Thursday, 15 October 2015. In its report, the Agency provided a status report on beneficiaries of social assistance, social assistance trends per province, as well as child grant beneficiaries.

The ...

The Week Ahead: End of Third Term

The constituency period beckons but there is still time for a fair amount of heavy-duty business before MPs depart.

With little scheduled in the main chambers, the committee corridor will be the main source of parliamentary action, where there are several hearings on important issues and detailed legislating.

The lone ...

Parliament discusses teenage pregnancy and education

By Rofhiwa Maneta

This week marked the midpoint of parliament’s third term. On Wednesday, parliament was host to a number of sittings directly related to young people. The NYDA presented its performance for the first quarter of the financial year to the Portfolio Committee of Monitoring and Evaluation. Similarly, ministers ...

The Week Ahead: Oversight visits & committee business dominate the week

This week marks the mid-way point of the third term and the programme has a familiar pattern: lots of unglamorous legislating, oversight and scrutinising, with some set piece battles in prospect.

Fireworks are expected during the debate on the parliamentary ad hoc committee report on the Nkandla upgrades. MPs visited ...

Five female MPs on their passion for politics

By Sheilan Clarke

Statistics show that 35.2% of South African cabinet ministers are women while 41.5% are parliamentarians. This means that of the 54 cabinet ministers, only 19 of them are women and out of a total of 400 parliamentarians, 166 are women. This is according to a United Nations ...

Black Sash poses questions to President before 2015 SONA

President Jacob Zuma, tonight you will present the State of the Nation Address (SoNA) to a joint sitting of Parliament. Below are some questions we wish to pose to you.

Honorable President Zuma, you told us this time last year that government’s monitoring and evaluation efforts indicate “an improvement in ...

Infographic: Substance abuse in South Africa

Last week, the Central Drug Authority (CDA) briefed the Portfolio Committee on the state of substance abuse in the country. The Committee received information that showed a concerning increasing in the abuse of drugs and alcohol amongst citizens aged between 15 and 64 years. Members of the Committee were concerned ...

The Week Ahead: Infrastructure theft, the Dalai Lama, and the abuse of older persons

President Zuma’s annual address to the National Council of Provinces (NCOP) is expected to steal the limelight this week. The theme for this year’s event is “Celebrating 20 years of a Democratic Parliament – together moving the NCOP forward as a vanguard of the interests of provinces”. Another story ...