Parly to have more say on government spending

Parliament might soon be able to flex its muscles and force the executive arm of government to take it more seriously.

A report with suggested legislation will be tabled in Parliament on November 19 outlining the new role Parliament should play in deciding where the government’s spending priorities lie. This is part of a long tug of war between the national legislature and the national treasury over what powers Parliament should have to amend money Bills, such as the annual budget, to enable it to play a better oversight role.

The report recommends that Parliament should have ‘more meaningful” engagement with the budget and not get sight of it only in February when it is tabled.

Parliament will not be able to veto the budget, but it can identify better spending priorities. This will help MPs to keep a beady eye on departments and force them to address their budgets and measure their performance in their annual reports.

Recently the inability of MPs to hold the executive to account was raised at a meeting of an extra-parliamentary panel assessing the work of the institution. The panel, a result of Parliament’s in-house peer review, is headed by former ANC MP Pregs Govender.

MPs complained that ministers did not take them seriously. Ruling party parliamentarians said they were wary of taking the executive to task because the hierarchy in the ANC did not allow junior members to criticise senior members.

Ministers failed to attend scheduled portfolio committee meetings where they were supposed to answer tough questions from MPs across the spectrum. Recently Minister of Home Affairs Nosiviwe Mapisa-Nqakula came under fire for not submitting apologies timeously to a portfolio committee meeting.

She faced the committee this week. Committee chairperson Patrick Chauke took issue with the department and the minister for their late submission of their annual report and the lack of information about recent suspensions in the department. Chauke urged committee members to be serious about their mandate to hold the executive to account.

Treasury has said previously that it does not want Parliament meddling in affairs such as the budget because MPs do not have the technical know-how to assess the spending of government funds.

‘Treasury feels it has 40 economists who work full time on the budget. They don’t want parliamentarians who know nothing to tell them what to do,” a senior parliamentary official told the Mail & Guardian.

However, treasury has complained that Parliament does not oversee properly and allows departments to misspend their funds without censuring them. The Constitution endorses Parliament’s right to amend money Bills but, so far, it has not done so.

ANC MP Barbara Hogan said the new legislation will enable Parliament to ‘make the executive sit up and listen”. The legislation is expected to be enacted by the new Parliament to be elected in 2009.

Since Govender’s panel started its work it has sent more than 1 000 letters to organisations and lobby groups to submit their views on Parliament. Hearings are now being held.

‘We are targeting organisations that have made submissions to Parliament previously, asking them if they feel they have been taken seriously,” said Govender. The panel will assess Parliament’s research capacity and how it monitors implementation of the laws it passes.

Parliamentary offices set up in rural areas are under scrutiny, as well as the functioning of the constituency system, which has been a thorny issue.

The panel can bring about powerful changes in the way Parliament does its work because of the way things are shifting politically, said Govender.

‘Now is the time for a lot of debate. The presidential debate in the ANC has opened up the space for other debates.” Parliaments globally are powerful bodies that can protect citizens in a world where human rights are often equated with trade rights, she said.

‘Globally the power has shifted from democratically elected bodies to multinationals that have the resources to override human rights and have their voices heard at places such as the World Trade Organisation,” said Govender.