Cape Town - Parliament should not delay the establishment of a portfolio committee to play an oversight role over the Presidency.
Last week, the rules committee decided to set up a task team that will embark on a study tour to check how other countries have oversight on the Presidency.
This after the Parliamentary Budget Office (PBO) indicated that its analysis had shown that in many instances the performance indicators of the Presidency were not included in the annual performance plan.
“The question is thus whether not having an oversight mechanism or committee on the Presidency denies Parliament access to these reports and prevents MPs from engaging with the accounting officer,” reads a PBO presentation.
While noting that various jurisdictions use a permanent or an ad hoc committee to play oversight on the Presidency, the PBO said there was much more that needed to be done to ensure there was no duplication.
The issue of the oversight committee was sparked by the Zondo Commission. It recommended that the National Assembly consider establishing a committee to oversee the aspects of the Presidency that are not overseen by existing structures.
The Constitution is clear that the National Assembly should “provide mechanisms to ensure all executive organs of state in the national sphere of government are accountable to it”.
It is an indictment on Parliament that three decades into our democracy, there is no oversight committee on the Presidency.
Even the newly created Ministry of Electricity does not have its own portfolio committee, the excuse being it does not have a specific budget.
That effectively means MPs can hold Minister Kgosientsho Ramokgopa accountable only via written and oral questions.
This does not bode well for the accountability of the executive and good governance.
Parliament should strengthen its oversight over the Presidency.
Parliament can ill-afford to kick the can down the road and leave the formation of the committee to the seventh Parliament.
If there is an appetite for checks and balances, Parliament should speedily agree, in principle, on the oversight committee and work out mechanisms on how it should be done.
Cape Times