Before I proceed, I would like to respond to the objections by hon Ntwanambi and hon Harris on Tuesday, 18 May 2010. I wish to begin by reminding members of the input by the hon Chairperson of the NCOP in the debate on Tuesday, 11 May 2010. He urged members to familiarise themselves with the Rules of the NCOP and to refer the presiding officer to the Rule in terms of which a point of order was raised.
Hon members, may I ask that you all be attentive, so that we don't repeat the same mistakes again? I looked at the unrevised Hansard for the debate on 18 May. Hon Ntwanambi raised, as a point of order, that the hon Worth was out of order because in referring to the issue of Umsobomvu or the youth agency, he was raising matters that were outside the parameters of the debate. I understood this to mean that the hon Ntwanambi wanted the presiding officer to call the hon Worth to order for raising issues that were irrelevant to the debate.
Hon Harris raised, as a point of order, that the hon Ntwanambi was contravening NCOP Rule 33 because she was not raising a point of order, but that she was only interrupting the hon Worth during his speech. NCOP Rule 36 provides that the presiding officer may order a member addressing the Chair to stop speaking if that member, despite warnings from the Chair, persists in irrelevant or repetitive arguments.
My interpretation of this Rule is that even though members have freedom of speech in the House and may raise political arguments and share their views, there are certain limitations. One such limitation is that the views put forward must be relevant to the debate before the House. The presiding officer should therefore ask whether reference by the hon Worth to the need for the monitoring of funds transferred to the National Youth Development Agency is relevant in the Budget Vote debate of the Department of Women, Children and People with Disabilities. I recall that at the establishment of this new Ministry of Women, Children and People with Disabilities, the area of the youth was specifically part of its mandate. However, subsequent to that, issues of the youth were transferred and are now located within the Ministry for Performance Monitoring and Evaluation as well as Administration in the Presidency.
My understanding is that the hon Ntwanambi was therefore not out of order when she raised a point of order regarding the relevance of the reference by hon Worth to the National Youth Development Agency or Umsobomvu. However, I am not of the view that the argument expressed by hon Worth was out of order because, in my opinion, the issue was not completely removed from the debate at hand, the most obvious connection being that matters concerning persons with disabilities could just as readily refer to matters concerning the youth.
In summary, the hon Ntwanambi did raise a point of order. However, my decision on that point of order is that the hon Worth was not raising a matter entirely irrelevant to the debate. Thank you.