OUTA teamed up with the Public Affairs Research Institute (PARI) and the Konrad Adenauer Stiftung (KAS) to produce a report on parliamentary oversight, State of Parliament and its MPs: Identifying challenges to oversight and proposing solutions.

This report was commissioned by OUTA, researched, written and produced by PARI, and made possible through funding by KAS. OUTA is grateful to PARI and KAS for their involvement in this project. See more on PARI here and on KAS here.

The report explains how the Constitution requires parliament to “scrutinise and oversee” the executive (the president and the ministers), explores the oversight function in parliament, explains the concepts of explanatory accountability and amendatory accountability, considers how well oversight is working and what can be done to improve it. PARI carried out research and extensive interviews with current and former parliamentarians and parliamentary observers for this report. The report is aimed particularly at new parliamentarians who will take up their positions after the 2024 elections. It is also aimed at the public, to encourage greater understanding of how parliament should work and public support for this. It provides straightforward assessments of basic requirements for oversight, for example, explaining what an effective MP should be doing and what an effective parliamentary oversight committee meeting should do.

State of Parliament and its MPs: Identifying challenges to oversight and proposing solutions was published in October 2023 and is available here.

OUTA’s Parliamentary Oversight Report 2023, our fifth annual oversight report, again finds that Parliament is a failed institution.

Parliament and our Members of Parliament (MPs) have been central to allowing state capture to go unchecked. Although parliament accepted the recommendations of the Commission of Inquiry into State Capture on action for parliament to take, parliamentarians have failed to act on these recommendations within the timeframe they gave themselves. Parliament as an institution is so weak that it appears to be a rubber stamp for executive malfeasance instead of a mechanism to act for the people of South Africa who voted for them.

This is the fifth report in OUTA’s annual series of reports on the oversight of parliament. Each of our previous reports was strongly critical of the failure by parliamentarians to hold the executive to account.

This report is again strongly critical, as we are concerned that parliament has failed to grasp the need to defend our democracy. This year, we voice our concern even more strongly, as parliament’s failure to hold the executive to account has become an entrenched position which threatens our democracy. This report includes a section of case studies: a look at particular examples in 11 portfolio committees which illustrate aspects of oversight and accountability (see section 7). The sixth parliament has been characterised by the focus on state capture, the removal of President Jacob Zuma and his replacement by President Cyril Ramaphosa. The State Capture Commission was finally established in January 2018 under the then Deputy Chief Justice Raymond Zondo (now Chief Justice). The commission started public hearings in August 2018 and handed over the volumes of its final report to President Ramaphosa from January 2022 to June 2022. The State Capture Commission’s final report contained a section on how parliament had aided and abetted state capture and what it should do to avoid this happening again.3 The initial deadline for implementing these recommendations was May 2023, so part of this report will focus on parliament’s progress on this. OUTA’s view is that implementing the State Capture Commission recommendations on parliament is the bare minimum that is needed ahead of our elections in 2024. South Africa is a youthful nation. However, it is not clear that the youth see democracy and elections and MPs as a preferred means of government. 

OUTA is issuing a serious warning in this report: our parliament is not living up to its promise. Our parliament has moved away from the fairytale promise of being a guardian of democracy to becoming a burnt-out institution, a nightmare in which this has become an institution which is not just physically burned down, but with parliamentarians’ commitment to democratic values and our Constitution similarly burnt out. Without serious reform as an institution, parliament cannot rise to take its proper place in democracy. New parliamentarians who arrive in 2024 will find themselves hamstrung and frustrated by an institution which appears designed to oppose transparent and accountable government and is no longer truly the people’s parliament.

Our report includes recommendations for strengthening oversight by Parliament of the Executive and government.

OUTA sees this report as part of strengthening our parliamentary democracy, to fulfil the rights enshrined in the Constitution, and we look forward to engaging further with Parliament. Parliament is a necessary cornerstone of our democracy, and it is only through constructive engagement that civil society can urge and demand accountability from our government.

This report was compiled by:

• Rachel Fischer, OUTA Parliamentary Engagement and Research Manager;

• Liz McDaid, OUTA Parliamentary and Energy Advisor; and

• Christopher Scholtz, OUTA Parliamentary Liaison.
  

Parliament: The fairytale that became a nightmare: OUTA 2023 Report on Parliamentary Oversight was published in September 2023 and is available here.

OUTA’s Parliamentary Oversight Report 2022, our fourth annual oversight report, again finds that Parliament is a failed institution.

Each of our previous reports was strongly critical of the failure by Members of Parliament (MPs) to hold the Executive – the ministers in Cabinet and the President – to account. Despite government’s claimed opposition to the erosion of state institutions due to state capture, this report finds no significant improvement in accountability by Parliament.

Our report focusses on the National Assembly side of Parliament, and the portfolio committees operated by our MPs which are responsible for oversight of the Executive and government. We assessed the work of 10 of these committees. There were spots of good work but too many disappointments. We found a Parliament mired in the aftermath of state capture, unable or unwilling to hold the Executive to account, routinely approving budgets despite flagrant financial mismanagement, continuing to regard public participation as a tick-box exercise, resisting the responsibility of implementing electoral reform to serve party interests.

We expect more of our parliamentarians, who promise in their oath of office to “obey, respect and uphold the Constitution and all other law of the Republic”, and whose job is set down in the Constitution as including “scrutinising and overseeing executive action”.

In 2019, our report asked why non-performing MPs continue to appear on political party lists for election.

In 2020, we noted that the current political system appears to reward unethical behaviour, with former ministers heavily implicated in state capture losing ministerial positions but being promoted by fellow MPs to powerful positions as committee chairs.

In 2021, we said it was difficult to escape the perception that Parliament has been hollowed out and filled with unethical people and, until that is addressed, we cannot expect any real accountability.

This year, we want to warn that if our democracy is to survive, we need ethical, hard-working parliamentarians, who stand up against corruption and work in the public interest. We do not have enough of them. We also encourage the public to be more active, to demand engagement with Parliament and to demand that their voices are heard. We need active citizens to defend our democracy.

Our report includes recommendations for strengthening oversight by Parliament of the Executive and government.

OUTA sees this report as part of strengthening our parliamentary democracy, to fulfil the rights enshrined in the Constitution, and we look forward to engaging further with Parliament. Parliament is a necessary cornerstone of our democracy, and it is only through constructive engagement that civil society can urge and demand accountability from our government.

This report was compiled by:

• Liz McDaid, OUTA Parliamentary and Energy Advisor

• Rachel Fischer, OUTA Parliamentary Engagement and Research Manager

• Christopher Scholtz, OUTA Parliamentary Liaison

• Thabile Zuma, OUTA Project Manager: Accountability and Governance Division

Kicking the can down the road: OUTA 2022 Report on Parliamentary Oversight was published in October 2022 and is available here.

An overview of the report, Advocacy Brief: Parliamentary Oversight Report, is available here.

OUTA's Parliamentary Oversight Report 2021 found that Parliament continues to fail to hold the executive to account.

This report was compiled by Liz McDaid, OUTA's Parliamentary and Energy Advisor, and published in February 2022.

This is OUTA's third annual report on parliamentary oversight and, like the previous reports, this report also finds that Parliament's oversight of the executive is inadequate with no significant improvement on previous years.

“A crucial part of Parliament’s job is to exercise oversight over the executive. It has failed in this, allowing state capture and corruption to become entrenched, and continues to fail, including by protecting and promoting those deeply implicated in wrongdoing. This report looks at how Parliament is failing and the implications of that failure,” says the report.

The report findings include that Parliament has failed in its duty of constitutional oversight, some MPs have failed to uphold their constitutional oath of office, the public participation processes are still inadequate, even some MPs are not heard by Parliament, there is no sign of the party constituency offices funded by Parliament, and there is a strong need for structural reform.

“The improvement we are looking for is a responsive Parliament, that holds the executive accountable, whose operations take place in a transparent manner and which shows a welcoming and proactive stance towards public participation. It is difficult to escape from the perception that Parliament has been hollowed out and filled with unethical people and, until that is addressed, we cannot expect any real accountability,” says the report.

OUTA Parliamentary Oversight Report 2021: MPs Dragging their feet was published in February 2022 and is available here.

Engaging with Parliament

On 30 September 2022, OUTA made a presentation to the Portfolio Committee on Mineral Resources and Energy on OUTA’s Parliamentary Oversight Report for 2020/21 (which was critical of the committee’s performance), explaining that OUTA wants a responsive Parliament that holds the executive accountable. The presentation is here.

Advocacy Briefs

Read below the Advocacy Briefs as prepared for the Parliamentary Oversight Report:

• Advocacy Brief on Overall Parliamentary Oversight here

• Advocacy Brief on Theory & Practice here

• Advocacy Brief on Public Participation here

• Advocacy Brief on Public Interest here

• Advocacy Brief on Constituency Engagement here

• Advocacy Brief on Structural Reform here

• Ethics Committee Interaction here

 In November 2020, OUTA submitted an affidavit to the Zondo Commission on State Capture, detailing how Parliament repeatedly failed to take action against state capture. OUTA has not made this affidavit public.

This affidavit was written by Matt Johnston, OUTA's Parliamentary Engagement Manager.

Members of Parliament (MPs) are responsible for holding government officials and Ministers to account. But, instead of defending South Africans against looters, Parliament has become a haven for those implicated in state capture – not only failing to act against implicated individuals but even offering lucrative jobs to some of them.

“The lack of public trust in Parliament as an institution for the people is partially due to the widely held view that it is ineffective, indecorous, and symbolic, rather than practically willing and able to assure the accountability and integrity of public servants,” says the affidavit.

It details how the rules that govern MPs are open-ended enough to empower the elected officials to take actions at their discretion, or to do nothing at all, with no real consequence either way. OUTA is therefore recommending that the rules be reviewed.

“Members of Parliament are free to act in the immense zone of the ‘permissible but not required’ without constitutional constraint. The rules of the National Assembly and the National Council of Provinces [the two Houses of Parliament] do not satisfy the constitutional provision that states they must ensure mechanisms that effect accountability and oversight of the Executive. Political interests and biases in the interpretation and application of these discretionary rules prevent tangible consequences resulting from them,” says the affidavit.

“An institutional culture has developed in Parliament where committees were eager to absolve themselves of any oversight and accountability duty – even when the public outcry and media exposés made it politically unviable for Parliament to ignore issues entirely. Committee Chairpersons were unable to assert themselves over members of the Cabinet who outrank them in the political party they serve. High-ranking employees of major state-owned entities did not consider themselves to be truly accountable to Members of Parliament either. They instead either mocked or attacked Parliament’s authority and would often give notice of absence at the last moment.”

OUTA is considering legal action to challenge Parliament's rules, to ensure it makes greater efforts to hold errant ministers and their departments to account.

An overview of this affidavit is available here.

 The 6th Parliament, which took office after the May 2019 elections, has the responsibility of cleaning up from the last era, plus ensuring that the new executive is held to account. However, OUTA has found the oversight by the 6th Parliament to be weak and inadequate.

This report is OUTA’s second annual assessment of Parliament’s oversight, and was written by Liz McDaid, OUTA’s Parliamentary Advisor. This report was delivered to Parliament on 12 November 2020.

This report emphasises that public participation is a cornerstone of good governance, and how Parliament largely pays lip service to this. Parliament’s own public participation policy was passed in 2018 but is not implemented. That policy calls for the public to be encouraged to provide verification of the performance of government departments – for example, confirm that schools have indeed been built.

“People are not getting the delivery they are entitled to, because Parliament does not ensure that the executive does its work,” says McDaid.

During the 6th Parliament, portfolio committees assessed by OUTA were found to be using significantly less external (non-government) sources than previously. This means that Members of Parliament are relying on the very departments that they hold to account for the information on which that oversight is based. It is extremely unlikely that departments would present their weaker sides to Parliament, and the opportunity to strengthen oversight through the involvement of civil society inputs is lost. 

A summary of MPs asleep at the wheel is here and the full report MPs asleep at the wheel is here.

 In May 2019, OUTA published our first report on parliamentary oversight.

OUTA Introductory Report on Parliamentary Oversight in South Africa was compiled by Matt Johnston, OUTA's Parliamentary Engagement Manager.

A strong constitutional democracy is built on an independent Parliament that holds the executive to account without fear or favour. Parliament's committees are where much of this work should happen. Such committees are regarded as the engine rooms of Parliament, where MPs from different political parties interrogate the work of the executive in their portfolios.

OUTA's first report on parliamentary oversight found that MPs often failed to hold the executive to account, either due to incapacity or lack of political will to do so.

While there appears to be a lack of action taken by various important committees around corruption and maladministration generally, there are also signs of hope in the determination of many individual Members of Parliament to ensure that the rule of law reigns in the public sector.

This goes to show that personal values of integrity, accountability, honesty and justice can, and must be visibly engrained in the day-to-day behaviour of influential public office bearers.

OUTA Introductory Report on Parliamentary Oversight in South Africa was published in May 2019 and is available here.