OFFICE OF THE ANC CHIEF WHIP'S YEAR-END STATEMENT

11 December 2012

The Office of the ANC Chief Whip is satisfied with the work of the African National Congress in Parliament during the year 2012. We have continued to deepen the activist character of Parliament by intensifying robust and fearless oversight in both the Houses of Parliament and through constituency outreach programmes.

For the third consecutive year, the ANC in Parliament received an unqualified financial audit report. The consistent clean audits of Caucus finance means that the ANC in Parliament not only expects the same from those it holds accountable, but it is also leads by example in this regard. The healthy financial status also means we continue to sufficiently fund our parliamentary programmes, thereby ensuring that, as part of this institution, we continue to offer a high quality service to the people.

Parliament in 2012 grappled with a total of 30 draft legislations in the National Assembly (NA) and the National Council of Provinces (NCOP), 13 of which were signed into law by President Jacob Zuma. This number of laws passed by parliament this year added significantly to the approximately 2200 progressive laws passed by this Parliament since 1994. This indeed further enhanced our country's democratic transformation process.

Within parliamentary Houses and committees, our members have led a fearless and robust oversight over members of the executive. There has been a significant improvement in various areas of parliamentary oversight mechanisms, such as motions without notice, notices of motions and members' statements. We have surpassed any other party in this regard: number of motions we proposed for debate stood at 138; the total number of statements presented in the House was 106; and motions without notice totalled 34. These are critical tools for parliamentary oversight, which MPs use to pose probing questions to government on service delivery programmes. We will continue to employ various mechanisms to ensure that oversight is pursued with vigour and firmness within various parliamentary structures. 

When this current parliamentary term began in 2009, we prioritised the transformation of our parliamentary constituency system to ensure that our constituency programmes meet the challenges of the activist Parliament, which we said must be the mainstay of our parliamentary oversight to ensure quality services to the people.We transformed our 264 parliamentary constituency offices (PCOs) into one-stop multipurpose centres and put in place monitoring systems to ensure our 299 MPs are rooted amongst the communities they represent. 

The year 2012 therefore presented us with an opportunity to conduct a midterm review and assessment of the effectiveness of our system. In this regard, four out of nine provinces have already been visited to ensure that our PCOs have the capacity to play the role they are supposed to play within the communities they are located. This ensures that where challenges rear their head they are immediately addressed to ensure that community concerns are addressed before they snowball into violent protests. This PCO review programme will be concluded early next year. To date, the ANC remains the only party in Parliament with existing PCOs and a functional constituency system that links the people with Parliament. During constituency periods MPs of parties such as the DA sit in air-conditioned offices in Cape Town and flood the media with an avalanche of press statements, whilst our MPs attend to constituency issues and interact with the people on the ground.

One of the primary tasks of the legislative arm of the state is the advancement of nation-building and social cohesion. The formation of the Parliamentary Interfaith Council ensured that Parliament plays a critical role in this regard, forging partnerships with faith-based movement to tackle challenges facing our society. At least three inter-faith confereinstitution strengthened working relationship with the religious sector, which represent over 80 percent of our society.

The ANC fully supports parliament's attendance and leave policy, which we believe will go a long way in curbing the problem of absenteeism and poor attendance by MPs across all political parties in this institution. In its current draft, the policy includes sanctions against defaulters which range from fines and salary deductions to expulsion from Parliament. We will urge parties to adopt this important policy to ensure that Parliament's dignity, accountability and discipline are preserved.

To bolster the quality of debate in Parliament and ensure that all parties contribute meaningfully to debates in the House, the ANC has donated some of its speaking time to smaller opposition parties. Previously, we sought only to augment smaller parties' speaking time during the post State of the Nation Address debates. The parliamentary rule of allocating parties speaking time proportional to the number of seats they occupy in the House means smaller parties with one or two MPs may only speak for one or two minutes, while bigger parties may speak up to 20 minutes. We will continue to urge other bigger parties, who have regrettably resisted this gesture thus far, to also do the same in the interest of deepening parliamentary participatory democracy. 

The multiparty Chief Whips' Forum, which is chaired by the Chief Whip of the Majority Party and is attended by chief whips from parties in parliament, sat regularly to deal with programming matters for scheduling in the National Assembly. While this forum was only limited to National Assembly chief whips, it has now been reconstituted to include party chief whips in the NCOP.

It is unfortunate that this forum has not been able to forge better inter-party relations to ensure modicum of mutual respect and tolerance. These unnecessary tensions, which go beyond the bounds of acceptable political and ideological differences, have often found expression in the most inappropriate forums, such as in the National Assembly sittings. The fist-banging of tables by the DA MPs during one of the sittings, based on what was later found to be a misinterpretation of the rules, will surely go down as the year 2012's most disgraceful day in Parliament.

The worst part of the whole shameful conduct is that it was led and encouraged, in full view of the public, by both the party DA Chief Whip and Parliamentary Leader. The fact that the nation is yet to receive an apology from these leaders following this shameful act speaks volumes about the type of leaders the DA currently have in Parliament. As the majority party, we have consistently disagreed politically with the chief whips of the DA in the past. However, one quality we could never take away from them is their polished grasp and interpretation of the rules of Parliament. It is unfortunate that the same cannot be said about the current DA chief whip and his deputy. It has never happened before that a chief whip, whose responsibility is to maintain order and discipline in the House amongst party MPs, brazenly leads his entire Caucus into a disorder and anarchy. It is even worse when such an act is later found to have been sparked by a misunderstanding of rules. It would seem that what the DA Chief Whip lacks in basic leadership, he makes up for with rowdiness and howling. The public is owed an unreserved apology for this blatant contempt of Parliament.

We will strive for improved inter-party relations in 2013 in the interest of the dignity, functionality and efficiency of Parliament. Indeed as parties in this institution, we must spare neither strength nor effort in ensuring that difficult challenges are resolved within the structures of Parliament without the involvement of the judiciary. Expecting the judiciary to adjudicate on matters that are Parliament'scompetence not only undermines the doctrine of separation of powers, but also sends out an incapable of managing its own affairs. The court cases by Mosioua Lekota against the Deputy Speaker of the National Assembly and the other by the DA aimed at forcing Parliament to debate a no confidence motion with urgency are both vexatious and unnecessary. It is not the responsibility of the courts to babysit Parliament. 

As 2012 draws to a close, we wish to thank all our MPs for their hard work and dedication during this year. We also wish them well during the course of their constituency work and good rest in their holidays.We would also like to thank our staff for their unwavering support and commitment in helping to advance the work of the ANC in Parliament.

The ANC in Parliament will hold its Caucus Lekgotla in February 2012 to design a programme of action, informed by the resolutions of the 2012 National Conference and the January 8th Statement of the National Executive Committee.

Statement issued by the Office of the ANC Chief Whip, December 11 2012

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