The DA will push for itself or one of the opposition parties to chair the first parliamentary oversight committee set up to hold a president accountable since 1994.
This comes after the ANC this week suffered its first major defeat in the GNU parliament when it failed to block a DA-sponsored resolution to establish an oversight committee to hold President Cyril Ramaphosa to account.
The ANC was outvoted by the DA, the EFF, the MK Party, the FF Plus and other parties when it tried to reject a motion by the blue party’s chief whip, George Michalakis, to form a portfolio committee on the Presidency during a meeting of the rules committee on Thursday night.
The ANC, which this year lost its majority for the first time since 1994, only had the support of the IFP.
Ironically, the IFP’s former chief whip Narend Singh, who is now a GNU deputy minister, had previously pushed for the institution of a parliamentary oversight committee for the Presidency.
Buoyed by its victory at the rules committee, the DA has indicated it will take the power battle further and insist that one of the opposition parties chair the committee.
This shows that the reality of losing power is hitting home for the ANC. They just essentially failed to defend their president
— Rules committee member
“We will certainly request to chair it. It is always good if a minister or the president is from one party that a member from a different party chairs the committee that does oversight over it. But the most important thing for now is to set it up,” said Michalakis yesterday.
A subcommittee of the National Assembly’s rules committee has been tasked with finalising the modalities of how the committee would operate, including the allocation of seats to each of the parties represented in parliament.
“This shows that the reality of losing power is hitting home for the ANC. They just essentially failed to defend their president,” said a rules committee member.
Until now, the president accounted to parliament only by way of oral question sessions once every quarter, while responding to written questions between those sessions.
The director-general of the Presidency is the only one in the government who does not appear before parliamentary committees.
Michalakis explained that the DA wanted a Presidency oversight committee instituted as part of parliament’s obligations to implement the recommendations of the commission of inquiry into state capture.
“It is significant in that it will establish a specific committee to which the Presidency must account on the R600m-odd budget that does not fall under the departments within the Presidency. It will also ensure that the director-general in the Presidency does so. The establishment of such a committee was an important recommendation in the Zondo report on state capture.
“We are of the view that a strong parliament that ensures honest, effective government is vital for our democracy, and we encourage oversight over the executive, including our own ministers,” said Michalakis.
The ANC, led by its chief whip, Mdumiseni Ntuli, tried to block the DA motion, arguing that it would suffice for ministers in the Presidency to appear before the portfolio committee on monitoring and evaluation and the joint standing committee on intelligence, the latter meeting behind closed doors.
Ntuli also argued that Ramaphosa should not be expected to appear before a parliamentary committee because he was not an MP.
“Unlike in other jurisdictions, the president is the head of state, and the executive authority of the republic rests on his shoulders. So, to determine how to strengthen his office’s accountability cannot just be an emotional decision but it must be well thought out and supported by cogent reasons,” he told the Sunday Times.
“As a matter of principle, the ANC is not opposed to the idea of strengthening the mechanism through which parliament holds the Presidency accountable. But we cannot support an arbitrary position driven by political expediency.”
The opposition parties were not swayed by that argument.
“We reject that with serious contempt because it places the president above the law,” MK Party chief whip Jimmy Manyi said in the meeting. “This current president has consolidated a lot of what was otherwise done in other areas [into his office] — that is why this arose.”
Manyi said that without oversight there could suddenly be a budget that only the president controlled, so oversight of the budget was long overdue.
EFF MP Veronica Mente said the portfolio committee on monitoring and evaluation was not the ideal body to tackle the office of the president and its affairs.
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