Hon Speaker, Deputy Speaker, Deputy President, members of the executive, comrades and colleagues, Bismillahir- Rahmanir-Raheem in the name of God, the Almighty, the All Merciful, we wish Madiba peace and tranquility in his last days. We hope there will be many more days. We wish that he does not suffer. Let there be as little suffering as possible. We further wish him well.
The budget for public and international relations is R125 million out of a total budget of plus minus R2 billion. Parliament's role and ultimate objective is to represent the people of South Africa and to ensure government by the people under our Constitution. Historically parliaments had little involvement in international relations. The role of parliaments in the international relations arena has more typically been confined to ratifying national agreements adopted by the executive.
The Constitution of South Africa stipulates that the holding of negotiations and the signing of international agreements are within the mandate of the executive branch. However, the approval of Parliament is required for these agreements to be binding, and approval is granted by the two Houses of Parliament. The budget makes provision for the subprogramme for international relations.
International relations provides protocol services, administration for bilateral and multilateral meetings, and services for official visits, including adequate content as well as procedural and logistical support for incoming and outgoing delegations. This subprogramme had a staff complement of 19 in 2012-13. Further recruitments are at this point ongoing in order to capacitate further the International Relations and Protocol Division.
While the role of Parliament in terms of the ratification of international agreements remains important, given the changes that have taken place in the international system, it must be noted that international issues have domestic implications which directly affect the constituents of parliamentarians. Therefore, Parliament must engage more meaningfully and constructively in international relations.
South Africa's foreign policy emphasises a developmental agenda aimed at improving the conditions of Africa's citizens as it actualises South Africa's national interests. Through oversight and the ratification of treaties, parliaments provide a crucial link between international relations and achieving domestic imperatives. Parliamentarians scrutinise legislation and monitor the activities of international relations departments which have the executive mandate of executing a country's foreign relations. Additionally, through the oversight function and approval of departmental budgets, parliamentarians are able to ensure that resources are not allocated inappropriately. Parliamentarians are also able to highlight foreign policy issues that are important to their constituency members so that they receive due consideration.
Parliament, as guided by South Africa's foreign policy, actively participates in various regional, continental and international fora to promote the African agenda and the role South Africa plays in this regard. These include the Africa, Caribbean, Pacific European Union forum, the Inter-Parliamentary Union, the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association, the Pan-African Parliament, and the Southern African Development Community Parliamentary Forum, SADC-PF - which is our very important regional forum that we attend.
Parliament's affiliation to and participation in these organisations result in commitments that need domestication, prioritising and a set of dedicated human and other resources. The South African Parliament has adopted an international relations policy and established the Parliamentary Group on International Relations, PGIR, to guide its interaction with the rest of the world and how it receives international visitors to Parliament.
Various focus groups have been compiled with the counterparts in other countries. This assists in the dialogue on good governance, conflict resolution, etc. However, I have to say that the lack of attendance of PGIR meetings seriously hampers the progress of our international relations and co-operation in terms of our African agenda.
A PGIR meeting has the same function and seriousness as any other committee meeting in this Parliament. I think that all of us should accept it as such. When you are a member of the PGIR, I implore you from this podium, please attend those meetings or ask your party to send a substitute. It is very important. At times we do not have quorums and then we can't honour our memorandums of understanding to our neighbouring countries. The list goes on. This is just not on.
We are at this time in the midst of building capacity to enable Parliament to engage with international relations issues optimally. This includes a content-based executive development programme to develop capacity in international relations; the establishment of specialist areas of work within the international relations division, and capacity for monitoring the implementation of international agreements by the executive as well as resolutions passed at multilateral conferences.
Parliament is able, through its oversight function, to intervene when it identifies issues that the executive may be neglecting. This highlights the important role that Parliament can play both in the formulation of foreign policy as well as its execution. South Africa has engaged directly with parliaments from across the globe. These engagements have not been limited exclusively to multilateral parliamentary forums. To enhance bilateral engagements with other parliaments, the Parliament of South Africa is in the process of formalising the establishment of parliamentary friendship groups.
A friendship group can be defined as a group of parliamentarians whose purpose is to establish exchanges with their counterparts in other countries. It means that there can be dialogue, especially in areas where there is potential conflict. I think that friendship groups can play a very important role there.
The term "parliamentary diplomacy" has developed rapidly over recent decades. It finds its relevance in the full range of international activities undertaken by countries and parliamentarians in order to increase and assist each other in improving the control of government and the representation of people through the increased means of democratic legitimacy of intergovernmental institutions.
As I said before, we belong to a number of multilateral fora. I only have five minutes left. I am just very quickly going to tell you that we belong to the CPA, that is, the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association, from which, as you know, we had withdrawn during the apartheid years. Now we are back and, in fact, this year, between July and August, we will be hosting the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association summit in South Africa. Mr Mahlangu will be the 59th president of the CPA conference.
We also have very strong links with the Inter-Parliamentary Union. Quite a lot of speakers have alluded to it, so I am not going to say much more about it. However, it is very important, because 162 countries meet at a time and talk about issues and make resolutions. The IPU has strong links with the United Nations, therefore things which needs to be done can get done because of the closeness between the UN and the IPU. Of course, it has very important programmes in terms of security, stability, peace, governance, democratic principles, human rights and so on.
We now come to an organisation which to my mind is very important for us, and that is the co-operation between the African, Caribbean and Pacific, ACP, countries and the European Economic Union, EU. Some of the African countries have been part of this body for a number of years. At this point in time they are part of the so-called Cotonou Partnership Agreement, which has only two years left. What happens then, after that?
I may be wrong, and I stand to be corrected, but I think that in South Africa this is the only body I see which has all of Africa and the Caribbean bodies engaged in dialogue with and working together with the European Union. I also think that it is very important that we play a greater role there, because many of those countries get quite a lot of foreign direct investment from the European Union. At these meetings, these countries are able to voice what is actually needed in their countries and what the actual situation is asthere is so much funding coming into the gross domestic product, GDP, from Europe.
I have noticed that when we go there and participate, many of the African states look up to us to put issues as they are, especially issues that concern conflict areas. They want us to play a greater role in the ACP-EU. I am not going to say anything about the Pan-African Parliament. My Comrade Thibedi said it all.
I do think that as the host country, our Parliament and the Pan-African Parliament have to send more people. The five people that we send there four times a year are not sufficient. These are the parliaments of Africa. There was good reason why we wanted to host them in South Africa. We should make a greater effort in working together with the Pan-African Parliament. From the time that it started up to now, it has grown in a wonderful way, from where its members were afraid to say what they wanted to say to now where they have the confidence to stand up and say what they need to say, even if it means going against their own executives.
The last thing that I want to bring to your notice is the African Peer Review Mechanism, APRM. The self-assessment process of the African Peer Review Mechanism is indeed a useful tool to assist the nation to conduct an honest analytical reflection of our progress as a developing democracy.
In the Pan-African Parliament, we should try to promote this concept of the APRM. I think that it was set up for a particular reason, and a very good one. It has an independent panel, the panel of the wise. It would be excellent if we are part of that panel at this point. I am requesting that we somehow play a more constructive role in the APRM structure. I thank you. [Applause.]