We have every right to demand more from well-paid MPs

Deputy President Cyril Ramaphosa's intervention yesterday to attempt to restore the dignity and efficacy of parliament was timely and necessary.

The sorry spectacle of rival MPs screaming insults at each other, getting involved in scuffles and show-boating for the gallery might have driven up the ratings of television channels that broadcast what seems to pass for debate these days, but it is also starting to undermine the legitimacy of parliament itself.

Of course, one could argue that the ANC started this process years ago, by undermining oversight committees, using its majority to force through unpopular laws and motions, ensuring that uncomfortable questions are not adequately answered by the executive and turning parliament into a government rubber stamp.

The scrapping of the Scorpions to protect the politically connected, the troubled passage of the appalling ''secrecy bill", the refusal of MPs to deal properly with the public protector's damning report on the spending of R246-million of public money on the president's private home and his refusal to appear before the house to answer questions all point to this.

Not only is the quality of debate far poorer than it was during our first two democratic parliaments, productivity in the House has dropped off sharply too.

As we report elsewhere today, in the six months since the new parliament convened, the chaos and grandstanding has impeded the work of the National Assembly, with at least nine bills still to be debated, while several others that the previous administration failed to finalise still have to be attended to.

South Africans have every right to expect a whole lot more from our highly paid MPs.

The millions of people who took the trouble of voting in May will be hoping that their representatives heed Ramaphosa's pledge to ''create a climate so that there is respect, there are no insults, there is proper decorum in which all members of the executive can come and answer".