Deputy Chair, and the Chairperson of the NCOP, I must admit that it is not always an advantage to be speaking at this point, because the temptation is great to deal with some misconceptions that are at times projected in the debate in the House. We are enjoined to create a South Africa that is nonracial, nonsexist, democratic and prosperous. As this House, we have consistently said that our understanding of that particular prosperity that we are talking about is one that is biased to the poor, unemployed, and the downtrodden.
It is in that context that we have indicated that we need to build a state as a key site of power. Within that state, you then have the strategic branch called Parliament. This Parliament is then made up, as enjoined by the Constitution, of two Houses - the National Assembly and the NCOP. Therefore, it is important that, as we see this branch as a key site of power, it shouldn't be about us, but about those who brought us here - the downtrodden, poor, marginalised, uneducated, and those who would ordinarily not be able to improve their lives without our assistance. I just want to deal with that misconception, because sometimes we may put an issue as a joke, but people out there, who might be listening to what we are saying, might misinterpret that.
There was a need for the establishment of the NCOP. It came as a result of an understanding that in South Africa we have the three tiers - national, provincial and local government. Therefore, what is that strategic and unique institution that we can create to be able to ensure that all these spheres find expression under a particular House that is of a national nature?
Therefore, that understanding brought us to the realisation that we needed the NCOP and that we should do away with the Senate. Historically - you would know that from the Westminster system - the Senate's mandate is totally different to that of the NCOP. For instance, in the Senate you would not have had the SA Local Government Association, Salga, participating in the House referred to as the NCOP or had a platform where provinces could independently raise their issues.
Therefore it is very important that we need to ensure that we understand and avoid creating confusion as members of the NCOP, when saying we would like to build our own capacity to ensure that we profile this House and put it at the centre of development and fighting poverty. We end up confusing the NCOP with the National Assembly. The National Assembly has a distinctive role, interrelated with what we are supposed to do. It is quite important that we need to avoid raising the kind of confusion that will end up confusing our people.
I could not agree more with all the members that have raised the issue of how we should embrace the characterisation of the Fourth Parliament as an activist one; as one that is not going to sit back and call on departments and make the bulk of our oversight to be concentrated as an in-house one.
This Fourth Parliament, the activist Parliament that we have come to embrace, is one which is interventionist and should reach out, and intervene on behalf of the poor and the downtrodden. It is important that we thank the presiding officers for their resolve to increase our oversight capacity and to strengthen the committees of Parliament, in order to be able to ensure that at the point of service delivery, Members of Parliament - and NCOP members in particular - together with those of the provincial legislatures and local government are there to see to it that they do what they had promised.
Let me quickly speak about the issue of facilities for members. Without belabouring the issue, as we speak today there are systems that have already been put in place. There is a subcommittee on information and communications technology, ICT, that is practically looking at how best to improve the facilities for members. Recommendations have come through now, with the digital transformation on how to ensure that members' work is dialectically linked to the general transformation of society. It doesn't matter whether it is at an ICT level or whatever. As we speak today, those are the kind of things that are being looked into. Of course, the figures have been mentioned by the Chairperson of the NCOP.
On the question of strengthening the work of the NCOP with those of the provincial legislatures, I think it is a matter that we need to explore. Today, as we speak, I have come to realise that provincial legislatures have separate budgets within their budgets specifically for NCOP support. It is budgeted for, but we don't see the relationship between that budget and what the members who are representing these provinces are then able to access in order to be better empowered. As we do our work, we also strengthen our legislatures and municipalities. I think this is a matter that this particular Parliament, in this financial year, really needs to look at.
That brings me to the point that the oversight role of the NCOP over the executive requires that, as a House, we must be ready to engage with the departments, and of course, not at a sweetheart level, but at an equal level.
Sometimes we tend to confuse robustness with arrogance or with rudeness, or robustness with a lack of understanding of what departments are doing. We need to ensure that, as we strengthen our oversight work, we are also able to take into account that there are those challenges that we would be faced with. [Interjections.]