Parliament's Presidency Committee worried about tracking multiple bodies

Parliament’s new committee on the Presidency is concerned about how it should be measuring the impact and results of the growing number of councils, task teams and advisory bodies established in that office.

After a two-day strategic planning session on how it will begin its work in what is deemed uncharted territory, the committee has resolved to start by calling the Presidency to explain its operations.

Chairperson Dorries Mpapane said the Presidency’s role across departments and spheres of government makes it difficult to determine who should be accountable for results.

The committee said it has received presentations from academics to help guide it on how it should tackle its new oversight role.

Parliament has never exercised direct oversight over the presidency through a committee.

Mpapane said a robust and clearly defined approach is needed to exercise oversight over the many bodies that have been established by the Presidency.

“It raises concern about the application, coherence, cost and measurable impact with limited consolidated oversight.”

Asked whether the committee might have to grapple with a Constitutional Court judgment on how Parliament has dealt with an impeachment report on President Cyril Ramaphosa, Mpapane had this to say.

“That matter of the Section 89 is with the relevant institutions, and we must allow those institutions to do their work. We will be able to respond to that question once the judgment has been passed.”

Mpapane said once the committee has had its first meeting with the Presidency, it will decide on its strategic plan and programme.