OUTA scores the 6th Parliament as “lamentable”

The Constitution requires Members of Parliament (MPs) to scrutinise and oversee executive (ministers) action, but OUTA believes they are letting South Africa down.

The Organisation Undoing Tax Abuse (OUTA) today releases its sixth annual Parliamentary Oversight Report, Laudable or lamentable? The 6th Parliament’s legacy. This report offers a detailed evaluation of the performance of South Africa’s 6th Parliament over the past year and reflects on its five-year legacy.

This report covers the period from 2019 to 2024, marked by the Covid-19 pandemic, economic instability, the fallout from state capture, and the ongoing financial collapse of several key state-owned enterprises (SOEs). The 6th Parliament faced an overwhelming number of crises, from service delivery failures to a rise in organised crime. These challenges added to existing issues in healthcare, financial management, and oversight delays, further exposing the deep-rooted problems within government structures.

OUTA’s report focuses on the performance of selected parliamentary portfolio committees within the National Assembly, evaluating their oversight of the executive, using their own legacy reports and Budgetary Review and Recommendation Reports (BRRRs). The report asks three key questions:

1. What challenges and opportunities did the committees face?

2. How effectively did they handle these challenges?

3. What recommendations can be made for the incoming 7th Parliament?

Overall, OUTA found that the 6th Parliament’s oversight performance is lamentable. This is the sixth year in a row that OUTA has criticised Parliament’s exercise of oversight as inadequate.

“What OUTA’s report shows is that the portfolio committees struggle to hold the executive to account. This is what underlies our finding that almost all of the committees we assessed are lamentable, and thus our finding that Parliament, overall, is lamentable, as it has no real method of holding inept or dysfunctional ministers to account and thus fails to do so,” says the report.

The report reveals that while some Members of Parliament (MPs) worked hard to fulfil their oversight duties, they were often hampered by limited resources, budgetary constraints, and uncooperative departments. OUTA identifies areas of concern, including corruption, mismanagement, and failure to act on the recommendations of the State Capture Commission. Major service delivery issues, such as the crises in water, sanitation, electricity, housing, and public transport, remain unaddressed. In addition, environmental issues, youth unemployment, and gender-based violence continue to be sidelined.

OUTA also highlights persistent challenges within Parliament itself, including inadequate training for MPs, insufficient funding for public participation, and a lack of decisive action on state capture. As Parliament prepares to oversee R2.136 trillion in national government spending in 2024/25, the report stresses the urgent need for stronger accountability and oversight.

The report offers several key recommendations to strengthen parliamentary oversight in the 7th Parliament. These include:

• Improved public participation: Parliament must enhance public involvement in legislation, leveraging digital tools and virtual platforms to make participation more accessible and transparent.

• Better oversight: Portfolio committees must push harder to eliminate wasteful programmes and hold departments accountable for their spending.

• Addressing state capture: Parliament must implement the recommendations of the State Capture Commission and take a firm stand against corruption within its ranks.

• Reforming SOEs: Urgent reforms are needed at SOEs, along with a reassessment of their funding models to ensure sustainability.

While the 6th Parliament faced significant obstacles, OUTA’s report offers a path forward for the 7th Parliament to learn from past failures and implement the necessary reforms to improve governance and service delivery in South Africa.

OUTA’s recommendations include increasing resources for parliamentary oversight, strengthening public participation and, crucially, calling on Parliament to implement the Oversight and Accountability Model it adopted 15 years ago.

This report was co-funded by the European Union.

More information

A soundclip with comment by Dr Rachel Fischer, OUTA's Parliamentary Engagement and Research Manager, is here.

OUTA’s sixth annual Parliamentary Oversight Report, Laudable or lamentable? The 6th Parliament’s legacy, is here.

For more information and access to previous reports, visit OUTA’s website here.