Cape Town - MPs should be able to “hit ministers hard” when holding them accountable in the National Assembly, with calls for more oral question time in the House and better quality answers from the executive.
The National Assembly’s rules subcommittee is busy discussing a number of proposed changes to the rules this week.
The meetings follow the ANC study group on rules meeting last month, where the ruling party discussed draft proposals to certain chapters of the National Assembly rules pertaining to questions to ministers and the president.
One of the proposals put forward by the ANC’s study group was that a minister may authorise his or her deputy or another cabinet minister to reply to a question directed at that minister.
Other proposals include norms in the rules, such as that a question to a minister must be restricted to the minister’s line- function responsibilities.
EFF MP Mbuyiseni Ndlozi said there were further proposals about time allocation.
He said questions should be more qualitative as opposed to quantitative.
“Whatever the question you ask, there is a time allocation to the time that the minister has to give it.
“The rule should be, if you have a follow-up question that has subdivisions or subquestions, whatever the question, the minister has three minutes to reply. I think the proposals have already dealt with quantity of time that we’ve spent on questions.
“Let’s allow people to phrase their questions in the best way and not impose limitations,” Ndlozi said.
He said the rules should “not impose too many restrictions on ourselves”.
“Let’s hit these ministers and let’s hit them hard,” Ndlozi added.
The DA’s Natasha Mazzone said she agreed with Ndlozi that the substance should be quality over quantity.
“But then that also brings us to the point when we get an answer from a minister – and I think it frustrates everyone – when you get an answer where a minister will stand up and say ‘yes’ and then sit down without elaborating.
“We must hold ministers accountable to giving quality answers,” Mazzone said, adding that “robust engagement” and the extension time of questions was important.
“I’ve never really understood that question sessions in Parliament start at 3pm instead of at 2pm. It should be from 2pm to 5pm. I know that ministers have cabinet meetings on Wednesdays, and that was one of the considerations.
“I’m sure there won’t be a problem for ministers to be excused an hour earlier, which would give even more bite on the cherry to have more questions answered,” Mazzone pointed out.
ANC MP Juli Kilian said that, in essence, an oral question was “not to get information”.
“Oral questions are an opportunity for political interaction. In fact, the purpose is to engage the minister in such a way that you compel him to give you the wrong information and say, ‘No, minister, according to my source of information or according to a reply you answered last year, these are the facts’,” Kilian explained.
She said MPs should shorten their time and “sharpen” their questions so that more questions could be processed during a two- hour session, “so that we can have more interesting responses in the National Assembly, whereas it can otherwise be very boring”, Kilian added.
Political Bureau