Cape Town - Speaker of Parliament Baleka Mbete is considering a request by opposition parties to have President Jacob Zuma appear before the National Assembly more than four times a year, as stipulated by Assembly rules.
The request is being considered by Mbete in consultation with the Presidency, and a decision would be made in due course, ANC chief whip Stone Sizani said on Tuesday.
The move has been welcomed by opposition parties, who say it’s a positive step for accountability and making up for some lost ground.
Sizani said the ANC had noted the discussions and decisions regarding the priorities of Parliament during this year by the National Assembly programming committee, which met last week.
“The discussions included a suggestion by opposition parties to increase the number of times the president should appear before the House to respond to oral questions this year.
“With the rules stipulating that the president appear at least four times a year, and having been prevented from responding to all the questions at his previous session, there was a request that he appear at least five times this year.
“This request is being considered by the Speaker in consultation with the Presidency, and a decision will be made in due course,” Sizani added.
Opposition MPs from the IFP and DA said Zuma should account and answer questions in the National Assembly more than the stipulated four times a year “to cover lost ground”.
The suggestion was put forward during the programme committee chaired by Mbete.
Rule 111(1)(a) of the National Assembly requires that the president put in an appearance at least once every term to answer questions from members, or four times a year.
But Sizani said this was not the only mechanism provided for the president to account to Parliament and the country.
“Overemphasis on this form of accounting to the exclusion of other equally important parliamentary accounting mechanisms is often deliberately made to drive inaccurate perceptions and falsehoods that the president does not take parliamentary accounting seriously,” Sizani said.
He added that this narrative by parties often “opportunistically isolates” the president from the rest of the executive to “take cheap shots at him”.
“This is despite the constitution clearly articulating that members of the executive are accountable to Parliament, individually and collectively,” he pointed out.
The DA’s chief whip, John Steenhuisen, who also raised the matter last week, said he believed Mbete’s move was a positive step.
“Never again should we end up in a position like last year when he made one appearance. But this is not something we should be grateful for. He must be accountable, and we believe the president needs to come more often, because we are in the midst of an energy crisis and in a bad economic space,” Steenhuisen added.
Nelson Mandela, who had far more obligations, found more time to address Parliament, Steenhuisen said.
Political Bureau