kougademocrat

The first year of the Fifth Parliament has been completed and what can we claim to have achieved.

Elza Van Lingen.

The National Council of Provinces is the House of Parliament which according to s42(4) of the Constitution the NCOP “… represents the provinces to ensure that provincial interests are taken into account in the national sphere of government.  It does this mainly by participating in the national legislative process and by providing a national forum for public consideration of issues affection the provinces …”

So may I refer the NCOP Chief Whip Hon Mateme and Hon Parkies, the programming whip to the Constitution and Parliament’s Budget Vote Book for Budget Vote 2 on page 13 under Expenditure where it refers specifically to Chapter 13 of the National Development Plan “… the National Council of Provinces needs to pay particular attention to how legislation will impact on the provinces…”

The day Helen Zille was elected as the Rotating Deputy Chairperson of the NCOP she informed members of this House that we must protect the Constitution and not allow political influences to cloud our mandate.  That mandate is the provincial mandate at a national level.

South Africa is in trouble. President Zuma may dance, mimic & mock, but the fact remains this is a broken economy, run by a broken man and his broken executive, where he is too scared to tell South Africans the truth why this country is on a slippery downhill and that his government will never address the challenges of unemployment, poverty and inequality.

The current extended unemployment figure stands at 36% of which 66% are the youth.  The extended unemployment numbers from Q1 in 2008 until now have increased by 2,3 million.  Since Q4 in 2014, the extended unemployment figure increased by 640,000.

The risk is that at the current growth rate under the present government only 1 million new jobs will possibly be created by 2030 and not the 11 million as envisaged by the National Development Plan.

So why are we talking jobs and unemployment here in the budget vote for parliament – simply because the buck stops with the National ANC Government.  And the only stats that are growing under this government are the unemployment figures in SA.

The Democratic Alliance puts forward an offer of governance in parliament that will remain true to our Values Charter of Freedom, Fairness and Opportunity.

Freedom must be the freedom to have a job rather than a work opportunity to be able to restore the dignity of our people.  The Fairness to an equal education and an opportunity to start up one’s own business as an entrepreneur.  The freedom to not wait for state hand-outs to survive. Freedom to earn an independent living and to educate our children. This will only be done under a DA government that will create a healthy economy with a growth rate that can sustain real jobs.

South Africa today knows what the Democratic Alliance says it will deliver, it does.  The promise is there, the delivery is there and the trust from the voters is there.

The DA proved to SA what good governance is.  In fact we proved to many of the national Ministers that through co-operation their departments can deliver in a DA-governed province and DA-governed municipalities.

In terms of procedure this Budget Vote for Parliament today has not been presented to anyone, or any report tabled anywhere.  So basically this budget vote should not be debated because no presentation was made to a particular committee, which the “executive” has in terms of the Financial Management of Parliament Act 10 of 2009.  So do we debate this or not or do we guide the NCOP in the right direction?  It is clearly implied in sections 51, 52 and 53 of this act as well as s54 stipulating that these reports must be tabled within 5 working days.

According to the budget summary this Vote has R2,07 billion to manage legislation and oversight.  That is huge and parliament is accountable.

At this moment there are 21 Bills lined up for this House.  It is thus clear that the executive plans to perform according to their Performance Agreements with the President to produce legislation, no matter what!

The embarrassment of Bills referred back to parliament by the President, weak as he may be, is a clear indication to the poor processes in the parliamentary system.  We only have to refer to the Minerals and Petroleum Development Amendment Act that was forced through at the end of the 4^th parliament in 13 days.

This is an abuse of the NCOP’s Constitutional mandate and it must never reoccur in this House.  We must adhere to the call of provinces to have an 8 week cycle to process s76 Bills to ensure proper public participation as per the mandate of the NCOP.

We do have a Parliamentary Budget Office, similar to other parliaments throughout the world.  This team of advisors inform parliament of the social and financial impact of new legislation before committees in parliament.  No legislation should be voted on in parliament without the guidance of this department on the social, economic and financial impact of such legislation.  This department must be empowered or scrapped.

Soos ons altyd in Afrikaans sê, kom ons steek hand in eie boesem en kyk wat moet ons regmaak in die NRvP.

Vrae aan die Ministers word nie beantwoord nie!  In slegs die laaste 5 maande van 2015 lyk die prentjie swak vir die aanspreeklikheid van die ANC.

Out of 187 questions asked by the DA only 95 were answered which means about 50% of the questions were not answered.

These serial offenders (gewoonte misdadigers) are the Ministers of Police, Public Works,  Public Enterprises – especially on Eskom, Human Settlements, COGTA, Social Development, Defence & Military Veterans.

Chairperson, today the Democratic Alliance tables the real mandate for the National Council of Provinces where there is a Charter for Freedom, Fairness and Opportunity.

It is clear that the DA is the next government in SA.  As we move toward the 2019 and govern more provinces, the specific provincial mandates and voting powers will change to reflect the provincial mandates. Most importantly it will reflect the mandate of the voters in true DA Values of Freedom, Fairness and Opportunity.

Hon Chairperson under a DA government the mandate of the voters will be the most important guideline to follow simply because in the DA democracy we will be accountable to the voters in term of our Values Charter.

The DA has been the only political party to implement the people’s mandates in our provincial and local governments.

Elza Van Lingen

This entry was posted on June 3, 2015 at 4:47 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.