As parliament resumes this week, the ANC and DA are still at loggerheads about who should be chairing the outstanding oversight committees, with the ANC showing an unwillingness to come to a compromise.
ANC chief whip Mdumiseni Ntuli told TimesLIVE Premium on Monday that the ANC would only sponsor two seats to the DA.
Ntuli said the DA expressed the desire for the two parties to equally split the chairperson positions, but the ANC did not agree.
“Now the compromise is to support them to chair two of those committees and the rest to be chaired by the ANC.”
This, we believe, is to accommodate certain members of the ANC who have lost out on more senior positions elsewhere
— George Michalakis, DA chief whip, on the ANC wanting all six chair positions for itself
Ntuli said when parliament business resumes after the spring break, all the joint committee chairs will be elected.
Talks between the two biggest parties in the government of national unity (GNU) over the chairpersonship of parliament’s six joint oversight committees have dragged on and delayed the establishment of these crucial committees.
Joint committees are made up of MPs from the National Assembly and the National Council of Provinces (NCOP), and each has two chairpersons representing each house.
DA chief whip George Michalakis said the parties had agreed that where one chairperson is from the National Assembly, the other party will get the chairperson of the NCOP. “That was settled. What we could not agree on, was how many chairpersons each party will get from each house,” said Michalakis.
“In that regard, the DA made a proposal on July 9, but we are still awaiting feedback from the ANC.”
But Ntuli disputed this, saying: “The DA and ANC never and could have never agreed on taking equal chairpersons of the joint committees.”
The Sunday Times reported a week ago that 100 days after it was constituted, the seventh democratic parliament has no structures in place to oversee government intelligence services, the conduct of spooks and wayward MPs, including scrutiny on how the legislature spends its R4.4bn budget.
Sources said this was due to parties bickering over who among them should chair the critical joint committees on ethics, intelligence, defence and the financial management of parliament, among other crucial areas of oversight.
Fingers were pointed at the dominant parties in the GNU — the ANC and the DA — as they had failed to agree on how to share the powerful parliamentary oversight committees along with other smaller parties.
On Friday, Michalakis said the DA has been waiting for the ANC to respond with names of its proposed chairperson candidates.
He claimed to have established that the ANC wanted all six chair positions for itself and called on the party to be reasonable.
“This, we believe, is to accommodate certain members of the ANC who have lost out on more senior positions elsewhere.”
Michalakis said this was not in the best interest of parliament, the public or the relationship within the GNU.
We entered this GNU on the condition of governing collaboratively, and should the ANC continue to make unilateral decisions, it will soon find itself without our support
— Michalakis
“As a consequence, the DA will continue to withhold its names from the joint committees as our only guarantee that the ANC will first conclude the negotiations in a manner that is fair and where the best possible people for the job can be designated by both parties.
“We do so reluctantly, bearing in mind the short-term frustrations, but it is in the interest of effective committees in the long term.”
“Our only other option is to submit these names and for the ANC to then decide unilaterally who serves where. It is not in the interest of democracy or our voters to allow the ANC to strong-arm GNU partners,” said Michalakis.
The ANC does not hold a majority in parliament and the balance of power lies with the DA, he said.
“We entered this GNU on the condition of governing collaboratively, and should the ANC continue to make unilateral decisions, it will soon find itself without our support,” said Michalakis.
According to the law and parliamentary rules, the legislature must constitute joint committees made up of members from the National Assembly and the National Council of Provinces (NCOP).
The outstanding committees also include the joint multiparty women’s caucus.
At the time, Michalakis said the parties had reached an “in principle” agreement on the division of committee chairs, but he was reluctant to share details.
Since the advent of the seventh parliament in June, leadership of parliament oversight committees is shared between ANC, DA and other GNU parties.
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