While it was designed to cut costs and reduce bureaucracy, a new video-conference facility launched in Parliament on Thursday gave MPs the chance to see what their colleagues in the provinces look like.
”We can see you are clearly looking very handsome,” National Council of Provinces (NCOP) chairperson Mninwa Mahlangu told a member of the Eastern Cape provincial legislature during a test of the new facility.
”You look even more gorgeous today [Thursday], chairperson,” joked deputy chair of chairs GT Snell.
The European Union-sponsored initiative would link Parliament, the NCOP and the legislatures in all nine provinces, allowing MPs and MPLs to see, hear and share PowerPoint presentations with each other.
”It will improve the efficiency of the main constitutional functions of the legislatures … and reduce time and the cost of travel between Parliament and the provinces,” Mahlangu told local and European Union MPs.
National Assembly speaker Baleka Mbete hoped the project would one day link the government to rural areas.
”We feel this job is complete when we bring villagers closer to us,” she said.
The MPs in Parliament could see themselves on two big screens mounted against the wall. Members of provincial legislatures were visible on two smaller screens.
Deputy secretary to Parliament Michael Coetzee said the voice, data and image integration still needed fine tuning.
Some of the images during Thursday’s crossings to provincial legislatures were jerky and slightly out of focus. The face of the chair of the KwaZulu-Natal legislature’s economic committee kept disintegrating into pixels.
Coetzee said the second part of the process would be to reach communities, but this was more difficult as the technology ”becomes a little bit more unstable”.
European Union Ambassador Lodewijk Briet said the system would strengthen law-making systems, policy development, oversight and increase public participation.
”It is aimed to support South Africa’s own goals to empower its electorate.” — Sapa