Nkosinathi Nhleko has been the African National Congress’s chief whip for just more than a year. In May 2002 the former trade unionist and MP since 1994 became the third chief whip in six months.
He took over after a three-month stint by Nosiviwe Mapisa-Nqakula, who became Deputy Minister of Home Affairs. Mapisa-Nqakula assumed the post when the corruption controversy forced Tony Yengeni out of the job.
Marianne Merten spoke to Nhleko about making Parliament relevant, the party’s ability to exercise oversight and the travails of stepping into Yengeni’s shoes.
Has the office of the chief whip recovered?
Perhaps that question should actually be put to people who have a direct experience of this office on a daily basis. We have been trying to emphasise an organisational approach to the work of Parliament … always to be founded on the ANC approach, but more so, the ANC policy framework.
[In debates] we tended to go beyond just the narrow confines of a piece of legislation or a budget vote to give a contextual meaning to what the issues are, so that any person outside the institution is then able to relate to [it] from a very basic, practical point of view.
If this is the “ANC approach” why do phrases such as “our president said in the State of the Nation address” or “under the previous apartheid colonial rule” keep coming up?
No, those are points of reference. If you measure the amount of progress we have made, there’s no way you are not going to reflect on those particular experiences.
The State of the Nation address has nothing to do with the president but everything with an evaluation of what progress has been made. It’s a [national] evaluation report.
How is Parliament relevant to national debates, for example the Growth and Development Summit? There is a view that debates are irrelevant to national public life.
Parliament has been very relevant. Before [last] Saturday’s [Growth and Development Summit] we had a debate. We had a debate on youth ahead of June 16.In the country we don’t have any other forum where national debates take place except here. People follow that debate and engage with it. So it becomes somewhat of a trendsetter.
What is your response to those who say Parliament is just a talk shop and law factory and that Luthuli House [the ANC head office] decides?
They are two very, very distinct structures. Parliament is constituted by 17 parties. So Parliament can’t be Luthuli House — it’s impossible. Parliament is not a two-thirds majority; it’s the whole 17 parties.
This is a very, very wrong notion. It is the kind of notion that should not be encouraged even if people want to talk badly of the ANC.
Who runs Parliament? (Earlier this year a rumpus emerged in the rules committee about whether the chief whips or the presiding officers were responsible for Parliament’s budget.)
That question is not relevant. Parliament has its own structure. It has its own rules on how it has to run.
And the public tensions over, for example, Yengeni’s reluctant resignation as MP?
That’s natural tension. The ANC is a political organisation; it has its own political culture. And then you have an institutional culture [of Parliament] that is not party political. From time to time you’ll have these tensions, and it’s healthy.
What would Parliament need to have a greater impact?
The greatest challenge is around the area of resources. The institution is constrained around financial resources. A number of committees have begun to interact with implementation of government policy and the impact it is making on the ground … That’s the area that needs to be intensified and be advanced.
It’s extremely expensive. Some committees have been able to do that. But instead of doing it once or twice a year you could actually do it three and more times a year.
What about oversight? Is Parliament exercising it effectively?
It’s important because there is no other structure in the country that is able to evaluate whether the government is making progress in bettering the lives of our people.
We would have to define oversight in our own relevant terms relative to our own political situation. The manner in which the British think of oversight and approach it can’t also be the manner we do things.
[In South Africa] when government comes into power it enters into a contract with the electorate and says: “Our duty is to accelerate service delivery in order to better the lives of our people.” So Parliament cannot stand aside. It must be able to say, “Let us see and evaluate” … And that’s oversight!
In the last session we took a position that we will have to focus people on constituency work because constituency work is part of oversight.
Will the ANC exercise oversight in the latest arms-deal controversy where there are accusations that the final report was doctored?
We have always exercised our oversight function and performance within the context of the parliamentary committees. We will continue to do so.
Can the ANC exercise oversight over Cabinet ministers, who are also very senior party officials?
There has never been difficulty around that. We don’t look at issues from an individualistic perspective. We have a particular political culture in the ANC … people debate.