The Chapter 9 Institutions are independent and outside of government, which is why they are appointed by and accountable to Parliament. Today, we adopt the ad hoc committee's recommendation to properly bring them home where they belong by establishing a unit on the constitutional and other independent bodies under the wing of the Speaker.
Parliament has not looked after the Chapter 9 Institutions properly, with the exception of the Auditor-General, who has a dedicated committee, and one or two others. The Chapter 9 Institutions have often been reduced to perfunctory hearings once or twice a year and are frequently neglected, specially by the admittedly overworked Justice Committee. For example, the Human Rights Commission Act predates the final Constitution and is hopelessly inadequate. It also provided our previous President with an excuse not to appoint the 11 commissioners we voted in at the last cycle when, in fact, he had no discretion on the matter. The Human Rights Commission has, therefore, been working with five commissioners all these years and lately with four.
So it is symptomatic of Parliament's whole attitude to the Chapter 9 Institutions that the ad hoc committee report itself, this book, suffered the same neglect. We finished the work in July 2007, but this report very nearly expired with this Parliament.
We therefore welcome this resolution because the introduction of the unit now establishes a beachhead for further attention to be paid by the next Parliament to the book full of recommendations from Sello Dithebe, the hon Carol Johnson, the hon Jane Matsomela, a few others and me, as well as the little big man who likes publicity.
The very best recommendation in the entire report is repeated in the resolution, to my delight, and it is that money voted to the institution should be dealt with as part of Parliament's Vote. Eddie Trent, who drove this issue in our ranks with me, will be as delighted as I am.
Bodies that are outside government should not be dependent on Ministries for the defence of their budget requests and the transfer of monies. We were delighted when the Treasury took the same view, because the fact is that the departments soon presume that bodies to which they transfer funds are agencies that are accountable to them - and that's where the trouble starts. These bodies are accountable to us, we should look after them and I hope that this report is dealt with fully when the next Parliament comes back. In the meantime, we support this resolution with great acclaim.