Sizani needs to account for Parliament’s poor management of the Medium Term Budget programme

19 November 2015

The ANC Chief Whip, Stone Sizani, needs to account for his recent lack of leadership that has led to budget bills being steamrolled through Parliament at the expense of due - and potentially Constitutional - process.

Last week, the DA blocked the Division of Revenue Amendment (DORA) Bill, and Parliament’s been scrambling to save face – and its programme since. Although the Bill was only passed by the House last night, the ANC has quite arrogantly attempted to continue processing Budget Bills in Parliament since Tuesday.

Most notably, the National Council of Provinces’ (NCOP) Appropriations Select Committee has already had deliberations on the provincial negotiating mandates on the DORA Bill and the Committee is scheduled to deliberate on final mandates this afternoon. However, the Constitution is clear that a section 76 Bill such as the DORA Bill cannot be dealt with by the NCOP until it has been referred to the NCOP once passed by the National Assembly (NA). 

We objected to this process in the NCOP. I together with the DA Leader in the NCOP, Elza van Lingen, also wrote a letter to the Speaker of the NA and the Chairperson of the NCOP to appeal to them to halt the constitutionally compromised handling of the DORA Bill.

Yesterday the Standing Committee on Appropriations was set to deliberate on the draft report of the Adjustments Appropriation Bill despite the fact that legally the Bill can only be referred to the Committee after the DORA Bill has been passed by Parliament – by both the NA and the NCOP.

The situation we now sit with is that the DORA Bill is only scheduled before the NCOP next week Tuesday, 24 November 2015. This means that the Standing Committee on Appropriations can only start formal deliberations on the Adjustments Appropriation Bill next week Wednesday, 25 November 2015, at the earliest.

If the Committee decides to amend the Adjustments Budget, as we contend it should in order to fund the Higher Education funding shortfall, the Committee could only report to the House days after that.

It is imperative the ANC Chief Whip, as well as the presiding officers, do everything in their power to ensure that these Bills are processed in a Constitutional manner so that the President is not forced to recommit them to Parliament at a later stage.

Issued by John Steenhuisen, DA Chief Whip, 19 November 2015