Lack of experienced MPs 'weakens' parly

The ANC needs to rethink its deployment policy to parliament, as it has resulted in fewer experienced members of the ruling party taking up seats and not contributing meaningfully during debates and oversight work.

This is according to ANC national executive committee (NEC) member and veteran MP Nyami Booi.

Booi, who is chair of the defence portfolio committee, told the Sunday Times that while the current ANC leadership had intervened by deploying more NEC members to chair committees during this term of parliament, the loss of experienced MPs to business, government departments, state entities and other areas of society had weakened the legislature considerably.

"We need to look at the deployment policy because this perception that parliament is weak will always be there if we keep losing people with that sort of institutional memory," he said.

The ANC chooses its MPs through a list system, which makes provision for half of its representatives to be selected from a national list and the other half from regional and provincial lists.

Booi said that the consequences of deploying fewer experienced cadres was often a reversal of roles where ministers were treated with deference, instead of being held accountable for the performance of their departments.

"It's important to train some of the current MPs and show them that the executive is accountable to them, not the other way around," he said.

Booi's committee is currently embroiled in an extraordinary stand-off with defence minister Lindiwe Sisulu over her refusal to hand over crucial reports on military morale.

The defence committee argues that it needs the reports to process legislation aimed at creating a commission that will advise the minister on service conditions in the army.

But Sisulu has refused to budge, arguing that the reports have to be processed by cabinet before they can be provided to parliament.

The speaker of parliament and the cabinet intervened, saying the interaction between his committee and the defence minister over the reports had been marked by robustness, but not hostility, and was an example for other parliamentary committees to emulate.

Booi, who has always been in the same ideological camp with Sisulu in the ANC, said their interaction in parliament was not a personality clash or a political parting of ways.

Booi, who was embroiled in the infamous Travelgate scandal, has also slammed parliament for failing to set clear and simple travel guidelines for MPs. This, he said, had exposed MPs to accusations of abusing the travel system.

"MPs are not protected by the system. How do you allow a member to claim more than R200000 without warning systems to alert him that he is going overboard?" he said in reference to DA MP Manie van Dyk, who is facing a party disciplinary panel for claiming over R275000 from parliament for kilometres travelled using his own vehicle.

He was the only MP to be tried and found guilty of abusing parliamentary vouchers after fellow MPs, who were facing similar charges, accepted plea bargains.

Booi also urged fellow ANC members to jack up their act, warning that the party could be voted out after 20 years in power if it failed to respond to the needs of citizens.