Chairperson, Core Objective 3 of Parliament's policy imperatives is to facilitate public participation and involvement, hence the term "people's Parliament". Our Parliament's idea of public participation is to recreate Parliament in some province at huge cost and use it as a platform to gain political mileage for the governing party. I'm glad that sanity has finally prevailed and that this practice has been abandoned in so far as the National Assembly is concerned.
Real public participation does not happen here in our Parliament, and I will give you two examples to illustrate my point. When it comes to international agreements, the executive binds all of South Africa without our knowledge. Parliament is not involved at any stage, and there is no strategy to monitor and exercise oversight over the implementation of international agreements, nor its impact on citizens. Portfolio committees are merely expected to rubber-stamp the executive's undertaking. The oversight and accountability model is supposed to address this, but we are well into a full year of the fourth Parliament, and this has yet to happen.
A second example is that South Africa has an ambassador to the United Nations. Yet, has this Parliament ever discussed any of the decisions the ambassador makes on behalf of South Africa, or have public hearings ever been held?
Parliamentary Democracy Offices, PDOs, are supposedly meant to be organs of Parliament to expand Parliament's access and to be in touch with people on the ground. The Chief Whips Forum requested a briefing from the Secretary's office on this issue. The officials failed to come the first time, citing that a workshop was more important and, on the second request, that they first had to consult with the presiding officers before coming to address the Chief Whips Forum. The DA seriously questions whether PDOs are necessary in the first place, whether it is carrying out its mandate and whether its existence justifies the expense.
A review of Chapter 9 and associated institutions was completed by an ad hoc committee chaired by former MP Kader Asmal. Huge resources were spent on it, and it dealt with primarily participatory issues. Why has this report not been dealt with in Parliament? Given the current dysfunctional nature of the, CGE, Commission for Gender Equality, and the Youth Commission, we should be looking seriously at the recommendations in the report, instead of using it as a doorstop.
South Africa played a leading role in the establishment of the Pan-African Parliament and in fact, one of our own MPs, hon Madasa, has recently been appointed as the Clerk of the Pan-African Parliament. However, as a Member of Parliament, I wish to register my frustration and disappointment of the Pan-African Parliament representing South Africa at the lack of research and other resources accorded to the South Africa delegation. Given that the Pan-African Parliament is going through a transformation process, the burden on the delegation has increased, but, regrettably, there are no resources. Speaker, I hope you will address this matter as a matter of urgency.
Parliament's strategic plan was tabled late, which in itself is quite unfortunate. It is my considered opinion that the strategic plan underpins the budget. Therefore, how do we as a Parliament monitor the budget if it does not go before any committee?
In conclusion, hon Thabethe, it is unfortunate that you refer to all the women parliamentarians in this House as tokens. I can assure you that all the women parliamentarians in the DA are here on merit. Your choice of terminology is offensive. [Applause.]