The process of holding government to account breaks down at critical points in the oversight cycle, says Public Service Accountability Monitor director Colm Allan.
He made his comments as the ANC gets ready to put many of those already in Parliament, and charged with overseeing the executives and government departments, on its list of candidates for the next general election and most likely back in the legislatures.
For much of this year parliamentarians were preoccupied with what exactly oversight is.
Parliament last week adopted more than 50 resolutions identifying weaknesses in government spending. Yet the legislature can do little more than write to errant departments and parastatals, asking them to address the problems.
Allan said the government must get nine out of 10 for its constitutional, legislative and policy framework, for delivery five of 10 and just three or four out of 10 for democratic oversight.
A key aspect of oversight was whether they could ”cut through the spin-doctoring that departments present in their annual reports”, he said, adding that parliamentarians had limited research capacity.
Lack of resources has been a thorn in the side of parliamentary office bearers for some time. Many committees operate without the support of even a single researcher.
Two views have emerged about the role of Parliament in oversight: on the one hand there is the ”Westminster-style” of aggressively highlighting shortcomings and delivery failures; on the other there is a more consensus-building approach, which involves criticisms being tabled and possible solutions being quietly negotiated.
As one ANC MPs said in a recent parliamentary debate: ”As Africans, the Westminster system is foreign to us.”
There is also a concern that MPs are reluctant to call senior members of their organisations, and the executive, to account for breaches of conduct. When the ethics committee cleared Deputy President Jacob Zuma of soliciting money and failing to disclose financial interests and benefits — they were regarded as loans — opposition parties slammed the finding.
”It appears that ministers are clearly off limits and this prevents Parliament from performing any real oversight function,” said Cheryllyn Dudley, an African Christian Democratic Party MP.