On Thursday, 20 November 2014 the Gauteng Provincial Legislature (GPL) will host a Thought Leadership Seminar as part of its ongoing activities to reflect on the past 20 Years of Democracy.
The seminar is the second in a series of Thought Leadership Conversations to address GPL’s constitutional mandate, with the objective of exchanging knowledge and formulating concrete ways to improve the current systems within the legislative sector.
Thought Leadership Conversations are aimed at assessing the 20-year progress made in relation to the core mandate of GPL to the Gauteng Province, which includes: Oversight over the Executive; Law-making; Public Participation; and Cooperative Governance.
The seminar will review progress made on the oversight mandate of GPL, as well as the South African Legislative Sector as a whole. Oversight is one of the key influential areas of the Legislature’s mandate as the performance or non-performance thereof directly impacts the quality of life of the people. 20 years down line, GPL improved its efforts to encourage public participation into legislative processes by stretching its reach to involve members of every sector of society while conducting oversight. This is over and above its key role of ensuring service delivery by the Executive through holding them accountable on behalf of the citizenry.
Furthermore, the seminar will evaluate the achievements of the past 20 years and further cultivate new ways of improving GPL’s services in contrast and comparison to pre-1994 and now, using the Standing Rules of the Legislature as a vantage point.
The Session seeks to draw comparisons between GPL’s performance on oversight and other national and international legislatures; this is evident through the benchmarking exercise to the Oxford Roundtable Discussion in April 2014.
The seminar will take place as follows:
Venue: GPL Public Forum; Cnr. President & City Hall Streets, Johannesburg CBD
Date: Thursday, 20 November 2014
Time: 14h00 to 16h30
Topic: Appreciating and Embracing GPL Exceptionalism: Looking Through the Oversight Lens
Presenter: Mr Michael Youash (Researcher and contributing author of PEBA/SOM)
Each Thought Leadership Conversation Session will be targeted at the theme’s industry experts and policy role players to ensure thorough analysis of the subject matter as well as well-informed recommendations to improve systems in the Legislative Sector.
Thursday’s Seminar will be addressed by Mr Michale Youash – a researcher and contributing author of the Programme Evaluation and Budget Analysis (PEBA)/Sector Oversight Model (SOM) mechanisms that guide Oversight in the South African Legislative Sector. Academics (UJ, WITS, UNISA, TUT etc), Thought Leadership institutions as well as GPL corporate partners will also be part of the seminar.
All media is invited to the session
For more information or interview queries, contact:
Ms Pfano Bulasigobo
Tel: 011 498 6381
Cell: 060 533 1982
E-mail: PBulasigobo@gpl.gov.za
Ms Khazi Sithole
Tel: 011 498 5777
Cell: 060 533 2122
E-mail: KSithole@gpl.gov.za
