Chairperson, colleagues, comrades and friends, you will recall that we came to this House and reported that we were concerned that whenever committees receive mandates from provinces, there was no uniformity as to who was supposed to sign the final mandate. That has been corrected by the senior House, the NCOP, through the committee led by yours truly.
What we did was to follow all the processes. As a norm, after we have passed a Bill in this House, our colleagues in the NA have to consider it, because the Bill emanated from this House. Our colleagues in the NA insert a clause or clauses in an attempt to improve the original Bill. The clause that they inserted provided that for each and every question that this House had to vote on, we had to get a mandate.
That was very problematic because that was going to mean that even for motions, as moved by my colleagues in this House this morning for example, we would have to adjourn and ask for mandates from our provinces. That was going to make our House dysfunctional.
Because we differed with the NA in this regard, we passed a motion establishing the Mediation Committee. The two Houses met to look into the particular clause we differed on. Our colleagues conceded that they are not clued up on issues in the senior House, hence they inserted that particular clause. But, ultimately, they agreed that it was wrong of them to include that particular clause, because it was going to render our House dysfunctional. Therefore, in the Mediation Committee we agreed to remove that particular clause.
All the mess has been cleared up; things are now back on track. We are now like a well-oiled machine. If this Bill gets the nod from this House now, it will mean that each and every final mandate that will come from provinces will be signed by the Speaker.
I don't want to bore members with more details, because this Bill has been in this House a long time. What I'm tabling is the report of the Mediation Committee. We managed to persuade our colleagues to understand our point of view. On that note, without taking too much of the House's time, we are tabling this report of the Mediation Committee and are commending that the proposals be accepted. Thank you, Chairperson.
Debate concluded.
Question put: That the Report be adopted.
IN FAVOUR: Eastern Cape, Free State, KwaZulu-Natal, Mpumalanga, Northern Cape.
We were just looking at the voting. I'm informed that although Gauteng has voted in favour of adopting the report, we don't have their mandate in writing yet. So, the record of provinces that have voted yes is six. I will remove Gauteng province's name from that list because we have not formally received their voting mandate. Therefore, five provinces have voted in favour of the Bill. Mr Sogoni?
Chairperson, I think that there is confusion on the part of Gauteng as far as the Rules are concerned. Gauteng is of the view that it had sent a final mandate for the delegation head to vote in favour of the process. However, as Kgoshi Mokoena has explained, the confusion arose when there had to be mediation. Gauteng was of the view that the original mandate was the mandate we had to carry. That is why we are voting now in favour of the report. In fact, we verified this before coming into the House.
Mr Sogoni, that's precisely why I'm removing Gauteng's name from the list of provinces that have voted in favour of the report. The mandate you have was for the first Bill, not the final Bill that Kgoshi Mokoena is referring to. I understand the misunderstanding. However, it should correspond with our Minutes that we have your mandate in writing for the original Bill, but not the final mandate. If you can send it, that would be fine. We will note it in our documents. Report accordingly adopted in accordance with section 65 of the Constitution.