By Nonhlanhla Chanza

Following the fourth democratic elections in April this year, President Jacob Zuma officially opened Fourth Parliament on the third of June 2009. Despite a few weeks set aside for constituency work, Parliament has been in session ever since and finished on 20th November 2009.

This has been a busy and a challenging first session for the institution which in its first months had to build up capacity through appointing personnel to key structures within Parliament. Where necessary, new systems and procedures were set up and Parliamentary Committees were also constituted and aligned with the new Administration’s expanded cabinet. Key events during the first few months involved the President’s State of the Nation Address, the appointment of chairpersons for Portfolio Committees as well as representatives to statutory bodies like the Judicial Service Commission. However, it’s safe to say that in its first months in session Parliament missed an opportunity to regain some of the credibility it had lost through its handling of the travel gate scandal. Four travel gate MPs were appointed into senior positions as committee chairpersons; and it would have been prudent for Parliament not to be seen to rewarding bad behavior.

Other key events before Parliament monitored by Idasa included the filling up of vacancies within Chapter nine bodies (especially those on the Human Rights Commission and the Public Protector); the Dissolution of the SABC Board and subsequent events, consideration of the Green Paper on the National Planning Commission, Parliament’s handling of the KPMG report which entail details of corruption by Parliament officials.  We also considered Parliament’s response to three legacy reports namely the New Oversight and Accountability Model;  the report of the Independent Panel Assessment of Parliament (which was referred to the Rules Committee and Parliament’s oversight Committee for further consideration);  and the Ad hoc Report on the Review of Chapter Nine Institutions. Parliament became a genuine forum for public consideration of issues when it held public hearings on the controversial labour broking system and measures to reduce interconnection rates.

Other events of highlight this session included Parliament’s robust handling of key reports from the Auditor General. The Auditor-General's reports related to mismanagement and irregularities in the N2 Gateway project, senior government employees benefiting from state contracts and tenders, the disturbing state of police services, 10111 call centres, inconsistent implementation of the sector policing policy, shortage of bullet proofs and police officers driving without valid driving licenses; misappropriation of public funds at the SABC; and the Environmental Affairs department’s handing of confiscated abalone including lack of formal policy over confiscated abalone, failure to monitor litigations before the courts and loss of income for the department following delays in awarding tenders to process and monitor the confiscated abalone.

Through Scopa’s robust style of questioning, government officials were made to account for the decisions they took and were continuously reprimanded for lack of inaction where they should have acted. The hearings into these audit reports highlighted the need for Parliament to consider ways of dealing with officials who deliberately mislead members of Parliament. For future purposes, it would again be wise for other committees to use Scopa’s work to improve their oversight work. For example, the AG’s report on employees benefiting from state tenders implicated several government departments yet only a few committees followed this issue up or showed interest.

Through the Defense committee’s grilling of Armscor’s delegation over various issues contained in its annual report, South Africans got to know of the government’s plans to buy eight A400M Airbus heavy-lift planes with the estimated price of around R47bn. These cases of good oversight together with others repeated in few other committees, made the first session of Fourth Parliament a very interesting one. Having said this, it is important to note that there were other cases which provided Parliament with ample of opportunity to hold the executive to account. For example, in his state of the Nation address, the President cautioned against wasteful expenditure and Parliamentary Committees could have used the President’s speech to hold Ministers to account over the millions they spent on new cars. Responsible officials could have been hauled before Parliament and made to justify the spending. Instead, most of the debates on this issue were held outside of Parliament. Again, Parliament’s over-occupation with how Maynier of the DA obtained the information regarding the activities of the National Conventional Control Committee, sidetracked it from engaging robustly with the allegations that South Africa is selling arms to rogue regimes around the world.

Lastly, Parliament is but one institution through which society can live to experience an open and transparent government. Therefore, the decision by some committees to have closed meetings – a notable feature of the first session of parliament- undermined the general spirit of Section 59 of the Constitution which states that the National Assembly must conduct its business in an open manner, and hold its sitting, and those of its committees in public’ and only exclude the public when ‘it is reasonable and justifiable to do so in an open and democratic society’. Parliament should honour its constitutional obligations and ensure that it remain open and accessible to all South Africans.