Chairperson, I will not waste your time. The House must resume its business again at 14:00.
Let me take this time to thank the Secretary to Parliament, the Deputy Secretary, and all the staff of Parliament who are doing a very good job in assisting us to implement this budget. Let me also say that it would not be possible without the support of the Chief Whip, the other Whips, the chairs of committees and all members of this House. The team spirit that I find in the National Council of Provinces is what makes us go and move with vigour and vim, and that is a wonderful thing. I think we can continue with that spirit. With regard to revamping the NCOP House, I would like to say to the hon Watson we are currently procuring the services of a company that will provide vision and sound. Therefore, we are actually not being held hostage by a company that has been paid and has run away. They were doing something different. In this respect, sound and vision is being provided by another company.
I want to agree with all members who have spoken about oversight. Oversight is key for us and very important, because members of the NCOP should be hands-on. That is an important part of it. Until things are achieved, you cannot rest and say, "I have done my work; I have given a report". I have mentioned this many times. You have got to go there to make sure that the schools are built, roads are built, the bridge which has been budgeted for is built. You must make sure that a quality bridge is built, and that people are using that particular bridge. That is our work. We have got to be on the ground.
I want to thank hon Tau who approached the presiding officers and the Chief Whip to ask what we can do to increase the oversight work time. Now, in order to do that, we have taken a decision together with the Chief Whip and the presiding officers. We are going to pilot a system whereby you people have got to be on the ground, for two weeks per quarter. That is where we are going to start. [Applause.]
You are on the ground to do your work, including during the Provincial Week. We are not taking away the Provincial Week. That gives you three weeks, actually, to go and do your work. That, however, will be studied carefully by the Whips, because we have also got a parliamentary programme. We need to sit, put questions to the executive and to the Deputy President, pass laws and do all the other work. So that must be included in the framework of Parliament.
Those are the steps that we have taken. We are going to start as soon as we come back from the long recess in July and pilot that scheme. If it works, we will then possibly increase the number of weeks. We may even block three or four weeks for you to be on the ground working with your people. You would then come back and report to Parliament on what you have done and what you have achieved in your provinces.
It is quite correct, and I agree with you on the sphere of local government. I think all members who were here last year and in the previous Third Parliament looked at our job, and we said one of the focus points was that of the local government sphere, because that is where service delivery is being done. I think we should continue to do that. Go back to the report of the workshop. Go and read it. I will ask the staff to circulate it again, because that is one of the things which we identified: we must be biased towards the local government sphere so that we can assist them to deliver on the work that they are doing. In terms of the Rules, honourable House, we, in the National Council of Provinces, are the first to have completed amending all our Rules. We have amended them. We will be finishing them during the recess and in the week we come back we will table them in the House for adoption so that we can move forward.
Ms Boroto mentioned spending from your own pocket on constituency work. All I can say now is that I think it is an issue. What Parliament does now is to give money to all parties as a constituency fund. Parties have the right to use it any way they want, but they must account to Parliament as to how they use it. I am not saying the matter must not be raised, however. It might just happen that the money that we give the parties is not enough in order to support you. That is the nitty-gritty, perhaps, that we can look at to see how members can be assisted in that regard. [Interjections.]
You have all said we are not well resourced. We will continue to look into those issues. We are a very new Parliament, a very new democracy. We will go on and increase our resources so that we reach the level of what other parliaments are doing.
As for the accommodation of members closer to Parliament, that discussion was already started under the Third Parliament. We are engaging public- private partnerships, the PPPs, in the Western Cape to see whether we can accommodate members closer to Parliament. Visibility will be done during the communications strategy which we have already completed, and I think we will be able to improve with regard to our visibility.
Hon Tau has responded to some of the issues. Thank you very much.
May God bless you, and I want to ask those people who are encouraging us to work more to support us, as they are doing, so that we can respond more to the issues that our people need on the ground. Thank you very much. [Applause.]
Debate concluded.
Business suspended at 13:35 and resumed at 14:36.