OTHER OPPOSITION PARTIES SILENT ONCE AGAIN
strong>Introduction
As argued before on InsidePolitics parliamentary questions are a key oversight mechanism that can be used not only to hold government departments accountable for the duties they are required to perform but also to explore possible corruption and obtain clarity on current political issues.
Oral questions are one of the few opportunities for political parties to force Ministers to account in person for their actions and those of their department. They differ from written questions because the member asking the question may ask an unscripted follow-up question.
Thursday, 4 October, was the first oral question deadline for the fourth parliamentary term and political parties were required to pose questions to departments in the peace and security cluster, namely: Safety and Security, Justice and Constitutional Development, Foreign Affairs, Defence and Intelligence.
A week later, the first draft of the prioritised question paper (where parties have arranged their questions according to their order of importance) was distributed to all political parties for consideration before the actual oral question session takes place this Wednesday; 17 October 2007.
The question paper, once again seems to demonstrate that opposition political parties, other than the DA, are failing to use this oversight opportunity effectively.
This is demonstrated in two ways:
1)Political parties not submitting any questions
2)Question topics
Political parties who submitted questions
Following the latest (and hopefully the last) floor-crossing window period, there are now 15 parties in the National Assembly. Despite this, only four bothered to submit oral questions on 5 October. Those four were:
•DA (10 questions)
•ANC (6 questions)
•IFP (2 questions)
•FF+ (1 question)
In other words the other eleven opposition parties who hold seats in Parliament failed to submit a single oral question, despite a three week notification period.
Question topics
As stated above, apart from the ANC, two other opposition parties, FF+ and IFP, submitted oral questions.
The FF+ and the IFP questions asked the following:
•The FF+ (1 question) asked the Minister of Defence if any Reserve Force members deployed under Operation Bata (1 June to 5 July 2007) have received compensation; and
•The IFP (two questions) asked the Minister of Defence whether any South African AU peacekeepers were killed or injured in Darfur in the past year and if peace keepers were properly equipped to defend themselves; and secondly, asked the Minister of Safety and Security whether he would conduct quarterly briefings on the SAPS readiness for the 2010 World Cup.
While it is true that these questions may have some significance (the IFP’s questions possibly more than the question asked by the FF+) the real question is, given the huge political developments of the last three or four weeks, how is it that none of these parties (including the other 11 parties that submitted nothing) saw fit to ignore the crisis around Vusi Pikoli, President Thabo Mbeki and Jackie Selebi.
It almost defies explanation.
Current political context and DA questions
There is no doubt that the issue that has dominated the news in past weeks has been the suspension of the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) head Vusi Pikoli and the warrant of arrest for National Police Commissioner Jackie Selebi. One of the main reasons for this issue dominating the media is the fact that President Mbeki and the ANC have largely remained silent over this issue, choosing instead to keep the public in the dark on details of the suspension and the arrest.
In light of this silence, a number of o
| Posted on 16/10/2007
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