DA requests investigation into Executive vetting of parliamentary questions

Section 92 of the Constitution stipulates that members of the Executive are collectively and individually accountable to Parliament for the exercise of their powers and the performance of their functions. 

Questions to the Executive are one of the few mechanisms Members of Parliament (MPs) have to ensure this accountability, and is often used by MPs as a means to provide their constituents answers to questions they have for the Executive.

For example, the DA asks numerous questions on the state of the economy and high levels of unemployment; government’s efforts to fight corruption; service delivery and the quality of education delivered to our children. Getting answers to these questions is therefore critically important for ordinary South Africans. 

In principle, MPs submit questions by certain deadlines for reply through a transparent process facilitated by Parliament’s Questions Office. In practice, however, the process has increasingly been abused to protect the Executive.

This year alone there have been numerous opportunities to submit questions to the Executive. The DA has already submitted countless questions, however, a number of them have been terminated or transferred to other departments by the Questions Office without consultation or notification.

The National Assembly Guide to Procedure (The Guide) provides 13 points outlining permissible and non-permissible subject matter and questioning, but the Questions Office’s reliance on government departments to advise them on departmental areas of competency has left the questions process open to manipulation by the Executive.

Procedure dictates that MPs submit their questions to the Questions Office which, on behalf of the Secretary to either the National Assembly (NA) or the National Council of Provinces (NCOP), edit them and ensures that they do not offend The Guide. Any proposed edits should be signed off by the relevant MP, published in the Question Paper and then sent to the relevant departments. 

We have however obtained written confirmation from the Questions Office that every question submitted by MP’s is sent in advance to departments during the editing process. Subsequently, as a direct result of departmental feedback following this ‘advance notice’, edits have been made to our MPs’ questions which means that the Executive arm of the government is vetting and shaping the questions posed to it by MPs. 

This practice compromises Parliaments oversight capacity, violates any tenants of transparency and is a gross violation of the separation of powers between Parliament and the Executive. 

Over the past year there has also been increased concern in certain editorial practices within the Questions Office with the stated intention of ensuring continuity or clarity of questions, but which in fact substantively alter their tone and intent.

This includes a Fifth Parliament practice within the Questions Office where questions referring to certain reports, articles and even websites, are not published until MPs provide copies of said documents. This essentially assumes that the MP is lying and places unnecessary onus to produce the referenced material on them before they are permitted to be published.  

We have challenged these practices on numerous occasions, and have had departments later acquiesce that they do in fact have involvement, oversight or mandate on the issue which they initially claimed they did not. We have also compiled and collated correspondences with the Questions Office that provide vivid evidence of this practice and the hampering impact it has on MPs’ ability to fulfil their oversight mandate.

The Guide was never intended to be used as a mechanism to manipulate, and impede, Parliament’s oversight role and the vetting of Members’ questions is simply unacceptable. 

Parliamentary questions are a crucial component of Parliament’s oversight mandate. They are a way South Africans can get answers from their elected representatives on issues that matter most to them. The continued procedural interference is compromising this mandate and can no longer be tolerated.

The DA will submit a compelling document we have prepared as well as copies of the evidence we have collected to the Speaker of the National Assembly, Baleka Mbete, House Chairperson, Thoko Didiza, and the Secretary of Parliament, Gengezi Mgidlana, and request a formal meeting and full investigation into these unscrupulous practices.

Issued by John Steenhuisen, DA Chief Whip, 7 October 2015