The rules committee will decide on whether Minister of Electricity Kgosientsho Ramakgopa’s department should be treated as a normal programme or have a portfolio committee. Picture: Masi Losi
Cape Town - ANC MPs have agreed that the re-established Department of Planning, Monitoring and Evaluation (PME), which is housed in the Presidency, will account to its own portfolio committee.
ANC MPs were responding to a National Assembly proposal about the PME.
Meanwhile, the rules committee will decide on whether Minister of Electricity Kgosientsho Ramakgopa’s department should be treated as a normal programme or have a portfolio committee like other departments, according to National Assembly secretary Masibulele Xaso.
The proposal is for the PME to answer to an oversight committee, Xaso said in his report to MPs.
Xaso tabled a presentation with proposals on the parliamentary management of the recent Cabinet changes, which saw the announcement of an electricity ministry.
“The information that we have is that this ministry doesn’t yet have a budget, but draws its budget from Vote 1 (the Presidency),” Xaso said.
He said there was no specific proposal on whether the electricity ministry should have a portfolio committee. He suggested that the decision be referred to the rules committee for deliberation.
“On the issue of Planning, Monitoring and Evaluation, we are proposing that a new portfolio committee be established (to) allow for expanded accountability by the Presidency to Parliament as regards the mandate and functioning of this portfolio,” Xaso said.
He said other departments in the Presidency already had portfolio committees.
IFP MP Narend Singh proposed that the Presidency has a single portfolio committee so that there is full accountability.
ANC MP Qubudile Dyantyi said because the electricity ministry was a programme, there would be no need for it to have a committee.
National Assembly Speaker Nosiviwe Mapisa-Nqakula also tabled a detailed report on the controversy around the State of the Nation Address (Sona), which saw EFF members charge the stage on which President Cyril Ramaphosa was seated.
MPs mooted the idea of punishing disorderly MPs by making them pay fines from their own pockets in order to avoid a repeat of the Sona incident.
ANC MP Regina Lesoma said the current rules on disruptions were “lax”.
ANC deputy chief whip Doris Dlakude said: “There should be consequence management. Removing people from the House is not enough. They keep on doing the same thing… being serial offenders.
“If we hit people in their pockets, they will refrain from repeating the disruptions in the House.”
Dyantyi said he wanted additional charges brought against EFF MPs who carried placards during the Sona.
soyiso.maliti@inl.co.za
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