Former Standing Committee on Public Accounts (Scopa) chairperson Themba Godi said the current Government Of National Unity (GNU) is not about the people but more about the individuals serving in the government.
Godi said he was not optimistic about having a much cleaner government because there would be “competition” between ANC ministers and DA ones.
“We are likely to have effective opposition and we are also going to have a weak Parliament on oversight.
“We can only rely on journalists to make sure that they keep ministers and Parliament accountable.
“When you look at the ANC as an organisation it doesn’t have any track record of being accountable; even the DA has shown itself to be very intolerant of its MECs being scrutinised in Cape Town,” he added.
Godi said the ANC was facing uncharted territory where it didn’t have a majority of 50 plus one, which forced the party to talk to other parties in an effort to negotiate positions in various committees.
“Right now there could be two scenarios, one could be jostling within the party between those who had expectations to be in Cabinet who could not manage to get in and those who are young and have ambitions.
“There could also be jostling for portfolio committees and the ANC is not yet in a position to simply say which committees its is willing to give to other parties and which to retain hence its request to be given more time.”
The former Scopa chairman said this as Parliament was yet to elect portfolio committees, which would hold the executive to account.
During the sitting of the Rules Committee of the National Assembly (NA), parties represented in Parliament agreed that portfolio committees would be composed of 15 members per committee to allow parties fair representation.
In the previous administration, portfolio committees comprised 11 members.
This decision was informed by the increase in the number of political parties represented in the NA from 14 in the previous parliamentary term to 18 parties in the current term.
As such, the ANC will have five representatives in each portfolio committee, the DA will have three, uMkhonto weSizwe Party (MK) two, and the EFF one.
Smaller parties will have four seats in each committee and will decide among themselves which respective parties will take the four available seats in each committee.
“The configuration of portfolio committees in the 7th Parliament will depend on the configuration of the Cabinet, which the leader of government business must confirm to Parliament.”
The Star
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