Busy start to Parliamentary term
The State of the Nation Address, the Budget Speech and a conference in support of the people of Cuba, Palestine and Western Sahara are some among a number of highlights on Parliament’s first term programme for 2014.
While some committees have already been at work since the start of the year, mainly attending to public hearings, the first term programme starts in earnest tomorrow.
Preparations for the State of the Nation Address on 13 February to a joint sitting of the National Assembly (NA) and the National Council of Provinces (NCOP) are advanced. The occasion – a highlight on our Parliamentary and political calendar - will again take place in the evening. This is to allow people to follow the proceedings, which will be broadcast live on radio and television and a number of big screens countrywide.
Members of the public, seated in the public galleries of the NA Chamber when President Jacob Zuma delivers the address on 13 February, will be able to have the address interpreted in any of our 11 official languages.
This is one of the features of the major audio and information technology upgrade, completed in the NA Chamber over the past three months.
It will be President Jacob Zuma’s last State of the Nation Address to the fourth democratic Parliament because a fifth democratic Parliament will be established after the general election this year.
The week preceding the State of the Nation Address is quite full, with, among others, the Select Committee on Security and Constitutional Development scheduled to receive a briefing by the Department of Police on the nomination of Mr Robert McBride to head the Independent Police Investigative Directorate. Also in that week, the Portfolio Committee International Relations and Cooperation has scheduled a conference in support of the people of Cuba, Palestine and Western Sahara.
In the run-up to the election and the dissolution of the NA, a number of outstanding bills remain to be processed. All outstanding bills and business of the NA and NCOP lapse at the end of the day of the last sittings of the Houses.
Also requiring some finality is the draft attendance policy for Members. Currently, Members’ attendance of House and Committee sittings is the responsibility of their political parties. A draft attendance policy was referred for processing last year to the Joint Whips’ Forum by the Joint Rules Committee. The Joint Whips’ Forum is provisionally scheduled to meet again in early February and will report to the Joint Rules Committee after that.
The programme for Parliament agreed in December by the multiparty Programme Committees of the NA and the NCOP, also provides for questions to be put to the Executive during this term.
In 2013 there were 10 question days with 3 207 written questions and 366 oral questions put to the Executive. Of the oral questions, 18 were to the President (all replied to), 12 to the Deputy President (all replied to) and 336 to Ministers. Parliament’s records showed there was one oral and 29 written questions to which Ministers did not reply.
Parliamentary debates in 2013 included the safety and security of women and children, a statement from the Minister of Health on HIV/AIDS and tuberculosis, the use of the South African Air Force Waterkloof base, the centenary of the 1913 Natives Land Act and the relevance of the National Key Points Act in a democratic South Africa.
