Mutshamaxitulu, Xipikara xa Yindlu Manana Thandi Modise, Mueketeri wa Xipikara Tatana Lechesa Tsenoli, Vaholobye lava va nga kona namuntlha, Swirho swa Huvo yo endla Milawu, inhlekanhi.
English:
Speaker, thank you very much for presenting the budget, my focus is on party political funding with specific reference to the Office Chief Whip of the Majority Party, the ANC. Parliamentary allowances to political parties is governed by a series of documents that have been agreed to through a process of consultation with the respective parties. Key amongst these is the policy on political parties' allowances which was approved by the presiding officers on 20 July 2005.
This policy document gives effect to section 57(2) of the Constitution which reads; assist leaders of political parties in
the National Assembly to effectively perform their function, to enable a party to establish and maintain an infrastructure to serve the interest of the constituents and to enable members to render a service to all their constituents. The key purpose of the policy document is to make available funds to political parties and to enable them participate effectively in Parliament and the provincial legislatures.
Since 1996, there have been ongoing amendments to the funding of political parties in an effort to meet the central challenge of what is contained in section 57 of the Constitution. There are challenges in regard to the calculation formula of political parties' parliamentary allowances. The current formula does not take into account the infrastructure required to ensure effective monitoring and evaluation as well as good governance, particularly, in the case of the majority party. Because of the number of Members of Parliament which includes the footprint of its parliamentary constituency offices around the country, the ANC parliamentary caucus is funding the support service functions of the human resource, finance, research, development,
media communications as well as the support function of programming from its existing allocation.
The infrastructure provided to the majority party is not commensurate with its responsibilities. The mismatch is found where a majority party is given huge administrative and technical responsibilities that eat into its allocation and leave the political core functions of a ruling party financially constrained by using the same formula that determines support for both political governance functions and administrative functions. The core business of the ANC in the context of parliamentary work revolves around the Office of the Chief Whip.
The Office of the Chief Whip is the political engine room of the ANC caucus responsible for the overhaul performance of both AMC and Parliament. The functions of the Chief Whip of the Majority party include amongst others; heading and shaping programming, heading the multiparty Chief Whips' Forum, international relations responsibilities, protocol responsibilities, political advice on draft legislation, political advice on matters before the National Assembly, legal support for decision making,
Whippery directly enhances the performance of Parliament and facilitate the communication between the Executive and parties in the House. All of these are not receiving dedicated funding and rather dealt with a normal formula.
This political office cannot be treated as ordinary line item expenditure. The current funding model falls short of enabling the ability of this political office to carry out its full mandate. There has to be a dedicated funding for this office in respect of its political functions rather than addressing it through the formula in clause 8 of the political party's allowances document. The cost required to fund this and other co-operate support functions can be made available by increasing the ratio of members to staff from the assumption of 2:1 to 4:1.
Hon Chairperson, it is my submission that the Office of the Chief Whip and its required infrastructure be funded by Parliament. An agreed revised and funded organogram would inform this. Section 8 of the policy on political party allowances would need to be overhauled as a consequence of the above recommendations. Probably, Speaker, as Parliament we might need
to look at having a Chief Whip of Parliament whose office would be properly resourced in terms of human and material resources. We have to look at different models and case studies internationally and adopt the best model of funding to resource the Office of the Chief Whip. The ANC support the Budget Vote of Parliament.
Xitsonga:
Ndza khensa, Mutshamaxitulu.