To political observers, South Africa’s legislatures can often appear to serve as a rubber stamp of government decision-making – given the example set in the ANC-majority national Parliament and some provincial legislatures.
This is of course not the case everywhere, the Western Cape provincial parliament has more often than not proven that legislatures in South Africa can have teeth, can be non-partisan and can hold the executive to account.
This is because, in the Western Cape provincial parliament, the DA has shied away from using its majority to drown out the opposition, but rather uses it to strengthen the legislature and its oversight mechanisms.
As the majority party, we proactively decreased our allocated number of member statements during sittings from five to four; and as a standard practice, a member of an opposition party is elected to serve as the legislature’s standing committee on public accounts (Scopa) chairperson.
In an opinion piece in the Cape Argus last week titled “Legislature continues to limp and play lackey”, ANC chief whip Pat Lekker sought to downplay the efficacy of the legislature by lamenting the DA for what she views as the legislature “playing lackey” to the premier and provincial executive.
Ironically, Lekker’s opinion piece came a day after a session of questions to the premier without notice, where members of the house are selected in a draw to ask the premier a question without prior notice. This is a level of direct oversight only seen in the Western Cape legislature.
Lekker’s main concern appears to be that only two ordinary sittings of the house have been scheduled for the first term of the year and “questions how the legislature can hold the executive accountable”.
While I appreciate the ANC’s desire for more oversight, there are a host of mechanisms in the legislature, in addition to sittings, to hold the executive to account.
The reasons behind the scheduling of the first term’s sitting days were duly discussed in “programming authority”, the multiparty committee responsible for scheduling the activities of the Western Cape legislature. If Lekker would attend the committee more regularly, she would know this.
This year the WCPP has scheduled 21 ordinary sitting days compared with the 14 sitting days last year. This is seven more days compared to last year. This does not speak to a legislature that does the “bidding” of an executive; it speaks to a legislature dedicated to its mandate to perform oversight, hold the executive to account and represent the interests of constituents.
The assertions made by Lekker are understandable considering the tendency of public representatives in her party to be beholden to Luthuli House and not the interests of their voters.
It is the national Assembly with its ANC majority that voted down the opportunity to hold the president accountable for the Phala Phala scandal; and it is the ANC-majority provincial legislatures where premiers either evade question sessions altogether or questions for reply are carefully selected and curated.
The Western Cape legislature is one of the few, if not only, to still utilise interpellations (mini-debates) during sittings, where the head of the executive is present at most, if not all, sittings and question sessions; where written replies from ministries are provided within the mandated two weeks and where members of the executive attend committee meetings.
As members of the Western Cape legislature, we must always strive to ensure maximum transparency, accountability and oversight and I am confident that my predecessors will be proud that the provincial parliament continues to operate without fear or favour and in the best interests of the people of the Western Cape.
* Wendy Kaizer-Philander is the Chief Whip of the DA in the Western Cape Provincial Parliament.
** The views expressed here are not necessarily those of Independent Media.
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