One moment the African National Congress says it wants open and transparent government; the next it seems intent on preventing it. No sooner has the ruling party ushered constitutional Bills through Parliament designed to improve public access to information on government, than the ANC comes up with proposals for parliamentary question time whose effect would be to curtail opposition parties’ ability to hold the president and Cabinet to account.
The proposals would, among other things, allocate questions to parties proportional to the number of seats each has. This approach, as one opposition whip points out, is likely to crowd out penetrating challenges from the opposition and encourage, instead, a string of “sweetheart” questions. These are questions of the kind that ask of a Cabinet minister: “Would the minister agree that the government did very well when it …?” “Would the minister accept my congratulations for …?” or “Will the government again be showing its concern for the people by …?”
Not only would this style of questioning be a waste of time and precious taxpayers’ money; it would also mean opposition parties had far less time to ask the searching questions it is their job to ask and which we all need them to ask.
Questions addressed to ministers of state by opposition MPs are central to any serious democracy. Indeed, not even John Vorster or PW Botha, surely the most authoritarian leaders it has been our misfortune to live under, dared to try to curtail opposition opportunities to ask questions in the fashion now being considered. The importance of the opposition’s right to ask questions was, in our own case, brilliantly demonstrated by veteran former human rights MP Helen Suzman. It is an example which opponents of tyranny – both inside and outside the ruling party – would do well to remember.
The ANC’s proposals would also require the president to answer questions on the floor of the House of Assembly only once every three months. This would be completely unsatisfactory. The president is a member of Cabinet; he was elected by Parliament; the Constitution makes the Cabinet answerable to Parliament. He should therefore regularly appear on the floor of Parliament to proclaim and defend his government’s policies and activities – at least fortnightly, if not weekly.
There have been indications that the presidency is seeking to improve the executive’s public profile. There can be few better ways of doing so than by subjecting the Cabinet, including the president, to regular contests with the opposition on the floor of Parliament. Our democracy needs it.
The IT revolution
President Thabo Mbeki was justified in making his appeal to the international community this week for help in bringing South Africa’s disadvantaged “on-line” where information technology is concerned. But it is worth questioning whether South Africa itself is showing as much interest in this sector as is required of it.
It is a truism that communications are the foundations of a prosperous economy. Yet is a principle which is frequently forgotten in the rush by parastatals to prove themselves through profitability and the anxiety of government departments to justify themselves through parsimony where the public purse is concerned.
This is demonstrated by the scandalous prices now charged by the national air carrier to people wishing to travel between the administrative and commercial capital and the parliamentary capital. It is also illustrated by the worrying deterioration in road surfaces being tolerated by government.
Anyone who has a computer knows of the attractions of such equipment to the younger generation and the speed with which they master it.
The Internet is a powerful educational tool and clearly has a potential as an instrument of commerce. Its capacity to help train and empower those communities which have access to it is self-evident. Surely this makes a case for a co- ordinated push to bring the IT revolution to our most deprived areas – to place, for instance, a computer in every household which enjoys a television and a phone.
In order to show the world that we are serious in our determination to use the Internet as a tool of further liberation we ought to be moving to a position where all local telephone calls are free of charge to facilitate access to the Net by the poorest in the country.
Ways also need be investigated to minimise the costs to the consumers of Internet servers. The head-in-the-sand approach adopted by Telkom, its instinct to corner the market in order to boost profits, does not do the country any favours.
In view of current predictions as to the central role the cellular telephone services are likely to play in the further development of IT, radical measures to exploit their potential also need to be considered.
INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY PROVIDES AN OPPORTUNITY TO CHALLENGE AND POSSIBLY OVERCOME THE HISTORIC DISADVANTAGES WHICH THE THIRD WORLD AND AFRICA IN PARTICULAR SUFFER. THE FACT THAT THE IT REVOLUTION HAS COINCIDED WITH POLITICAL LIBERATION IN THIS COUNTRY CAN BE SEEN AS AN OFFERING FROM THE GODS WHICH IT IS OUR DUTY TO SEIZE.