The Week Ahead: End of the Second Term

Parliament’s second term comes to an end after six busy and tumultuous weeks. Some of the highlights include oversight and legislation work, questions to the President, his Deputy and the Executive, Women’s month and Heritage Day celebrations and the National Council of Province’s provincial week.

The defining moment of the session was the suspension of the National Assembly during oral questions with the President due to the disruption caused by the EFF. The legislature appointed a committee to review the EFF’s conduct and recommend possible disciplinary action in terms of the Powers, Privileges and Immunities of Parliament and Provincial Legislatures Act. The fallout from the incident continues to rage on and has made the debates in the legislature increasingly bad-tempered with the presiding officers and the ruling party pitted against most of the opposition parties. Additionally, many have raised serious questions about the role of the speaker and Parliament, the decorum of MPs, the rules of the legislature and executive accountability.

No plenary sittings have been scheduled for this week, with many committees choosing to have strategic planning workshops and oversight visits. The strategic plans give committees an opportunity to identify their mandate as well as to develop a programme of action for the duration of their term. Some of the interesting oversight visits arranged include those to the Gauteng Province and Mpumalanga Border Post and to areas of illegal mining and acid mine drainage in Gauteng area.

There are only a handful of meetings scheduled; however, all of the attention will be focused on two of them. After finalising its term of reference, composition and programme, the Ad Hoc Committee set up to consider the President’s reply to the Public Protector’s report about the upgrade at his Nkandla residence will finally start to grapple with the substantive issues on Thursday and Friday. Already, there is speculation about who will be subpoenaed to give evidence and if the Public Protector’s Report supersedes the SIU and Inter-Ministerial Committee Reports.The committee’s deadline to make recommendations to Parliament is the end of next month.

On Thursday, Parliament’s communications portfolio committee will commence its inquiry into the allegations of misrepresentation of qualifications by the SABC board chairperson Zandile Tshabalala.

The constituency period will last three weeks (29 September – 13 October). During this time, MPs have a duty to:

• Be available to the public
• Help solve problems and
• Report back to their constituents on what is happening in Parliament

The purpose of these periods is to encourage MPs to remain in contact with the people they represent.