Hon Deputy Chairperson, I move the motion printed in my name on the Order Paper as follows:
That the Council, notwithstanding Joint Rule 102 (a) and (c), which provide, inter alia, that the Constitutional Review Committee must, annually before the first day of May, invite the public to submit to the committee written representations on any constitutional matter and that the committee must consider these at the start of the third term of a year, subject to the concurrence of the National Assembly, condones the timeframes adopted by the committee for the public to make submissions for 2009, namely 19 July to 19 August; and resolves that the committee proceeds to consider the submissions as soon as possible after the closing date.
Order! I shall now put the question. The question is that the motion be agreed to. As this decision is dealt with in terms of section 65 of the Constitution, I shall first ascertain whether all delegation heads are present in the Chamber to cast their provinces' votes. Are all delegation heads present?
I shall now also allow provinces the opportunity to make their declaration in terms of Rule 71 if they so wish. Is there any province wishing to make any declaration of vote? None.
We shall now proceed to the voting on the question. I shall do this in alphabetical order per province. Delegation heads must please insert their cards. Before I call the voting, please press button number one to confirm your presence. There should be lights flashing. Are your lights flashing? If not, the Chamber staff will assist.
We now come to the voting. When I call the name of a province, the delegation head will vote by pressing button number four for those who vote in favour, button number two for those who vote against and button number three for those who abstain.
Question put: That the motion be agreed to.
IN FAVOUR: Gauteng, KwaZulu-Natal, Mpumalanga, Northern Cape, North West, Western Cape.
Hon Deputy Chairperson, on a point of order: The Northern Cape did not meet and was not consulted on this issue.
Deputy Chairperson, I want to say that hon Sinclair is completely out of order. Everybody here has a mandate from his or her province; that is why we are here.
Hon member, are we now getting involved in a dialogue?
Hon Deputy Chairperson, if you will allow me, let me state that the Constitution is very clear on the process of consultation and to the best of my knowledge, none of these delegations, including that of the Northern Cape, met to discuss the issue on which we are currently required to deliver an opinion.
Hon member, my understanding is that every province has a delegation as part of the NCOP. If they have not decided to meet and discuss the things that are supposed to be debated now, it is unfortunate, because people have already voted.
Deputy Chairperson, it is a pity that I do not have it with me, but, in terms of the Constitution of the Republic of South Africa, for the establishment of the NCOP, the leader of the delegation to the NCOP is a premier of a province. As the motion has been printed on the Order Paper, the Premier of the Northern Cape has delegated the leader - who, in this instance is hon Mokgoro - to vote in favour of the motion.
Therefore, there is no contradiction. There is absolutely no need for us to have met as a province, because the leader of the delegation, in this case the Premier of the Northern Cape, has delegated the task of voting in favour of the motion, as printed on the Order Paper, to hon Mokgoro. Thank you.
Motion accordingly agreed to in accordance with section 65 of the Constitution.
Hon members, as the Deputy Chair has indicated, we are now proceeding to the questions asked to the Security cluster. Members are reminded that when asking follow-up questions, they must not ask a new question; it's a follow-up question on a question asked. There is a tendency for people to ask new questions altogether. Now, that won't be allowed.
Members are reminded that, since this is our first questions session, time for replies per question is five minutes. So, the Minister will have five minutes to respond to the question; and time for asking a supplementary question is two minutes. The time for the Minister to reply to a supplementary question is four minutes. Only four supplementary questions will be allowed per question; that should not be exceeded. Do we all understand this? Fine, thank you very much.
I will then move to Question 1 asked by the hon D D Gamede from KZN to the Minister of Police.