Hon House Chair, I would like to add the serious concern of Cope regarding the deliberations of the Committee on Private Members' Legislative Proposals and Special Petitions. The reason is that we have to assess legislative proposals on set criteria and send them through to the relevant portfolio committee for the evaluation of the detail.
We basically consider principle and then we analyse it according to the set criteria. From there on, it is within the realm responsibility of the portfolio committees to go into the detail. Issues of constitutionality could certainly be evaluated once it reached portfolio committees.
The concern that Cope is placing on the table is this: Do we really have a commitment from the governing party to stamp out corruption? This when we had the tabling of the report of the Special Investigating Unit on 26 July, indicating that R5 billion is currently being scrutinised. This is based on corrupt deals between government officials, through politicians in high places.
The issue is: Is this government serious about the eradication of corruption? We are concerned that this is not the case. The issue here before us is that the constitutional right of every member of this House to table legislative proposals is systematically being eroded.
If we look at the history of legislation proposed by members since 2000, the statistic is actually shocking. All together, 73 legislative proposals were submitted. Of those, only 5 made it, and that was in the year 2008 - that was since 2000. Between 2000 and 2007, we had 32 legislative proposals, none of which succeeded beyond this committee, which is why we call this committee the ``guillotine committee''.
It seems the ANC is absolutely set on frustrating members of the opposition who identify weaknesses in legislation, whose proposals could result in better government for the people, the improved provision of housing, money not disappearing into the pockets of housing officials, etc.
The question remains: What purpose did the guillotining - once again - of this legislative proposal serve? It certainly cannot be judged on the basis of its being unconstitutional, because that is the work of the portfolio committee.