Idasa welcomes this opportunity to make a written submission to the Portfolio Committee on Finance on the draft Money Bills Amendment Procedure and Related Matters Bill, 2008. This submission consists of four main sections: Section 2 sets out some general matters related to the question of legislative budgetary amendment power. Section 3 engages in detail with aspects of the bill that we feel require further deliberation. Section 4 evaluates the draft Bill against a set of criteria for effective legislative amendment engagement. The final section derives from the preceding ones and makes some recommendations that we feel would improve the Bill.