Parliament resumes this week after a two-week constituency period. The second term will run for eleven weeks and the programme is packed with activities. Some of the highlights include committee, oversight and legislative work; oral questions to the President and the Executive; budget vote debates and the National Council of Province’s Taking Parliament to the People Week. In addition, the legislature has provisionally scheduled three joint sittings to debate and commemorate Freedom Day, Africa Day and Youth Day.
The limelight will be on President Zuma when he answers oral questions in the National Assembly on Thursday. This extra session was arranged after opposition MPs demanded that he respond to the remaining questions from last year's disrupted proceedings. In addition to this question session, the President is scheduled also to appear on 18 June, 6 August and 19 November. There is every chance that this sitting will be as boisterous and excitable as the President's last appearance.
[Watch the video here]
The National Council of Provinces is hosting the Taking Parliament to the People programme in Oudtshoorn from 13-17 April 2015. Through this initiative, “the NCOP has been able to promote greater public participation in parliamentary affairs by enabling individuals and representatives of civil society to meet members of the NCOP in different parts of the country”.
Elsewhere, parliamentary committees will resume processing the budget votes. This process includes meetings with various departments and entities on their strategic plans, annual performance plans and budgets. Committees then have to prepare a report for consideration by the House. This will be followed by the budget debates in the Extended Public Committees (EPCs), and conclude with consideration of the Appropriation Bill by the NA and the NCOP in June.
MPs will do so some heavy legislative lifting this term as there are 22 bills before the legislature, with more expected during the term. The Expropriation Bill and Mineral and Petroleum Resources Development Amendment Bill are two of the more contentious bills that will be considered.
The Committee corridor is drab this week and is unlikely to produce many big headlines. Here is a rundown of the highlights:
On Tuesday, civil society and other groups will give their input on the 2015/16 Budget, Annual Performance Plan and Strategic Plans of the South African Police Service, Independent Police Investigative Directorate, Private Security Industry Regulatory Authority and Civilian Secretariat for Police. Committee Chairperson, Mr Francois Beukman, is quoted as saying that “the Committee needed clear assurances that leadership challenges in entities such as the DPCI and IPID would be adequately resolved. Performance plans and budgetary proposals of the two institutions will also be scrutinised to determine whether there are necessary action plans is in place to address organised crime and corruption by police officers”.
The NYDA will brief MPs on its plans on Wednesday and the Department of Public Service and Administration will do the same on Thursday.
Read the full list here.
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