ANC Must Act in Good Faith to Ensure That Parliament Serves South Africa

Dear Editor

The Democratic Alliance (DA) demands that the ANC act in a manner that is reasonable and in the best interest of the public in setting up the joint committees of Parliament. This process cannot continue to be delayed.

On 8 July, the DA and ANC agreed to split the chairpersonship of the joint committees equally, the only dispute being who would send a chairperson from the National Assembly (NA) and National Council of Provinces (NCOP) respectively. Of the six Joint Committees, the DA asked that two of its chairpersons be sent from the NA, to allow for experienced members to be able to fulfil this role in the best interest of Parliament and our voters.

This proposal was sent in writing to the ANC on 9 July and we are still waiting for the ANC to respond.

This week, it became apparent that the ANC has announced chairpersonships of the joint committees in their caucus before concluding the negotiations with the DA, taking all the chairpersonships from the NA. This, we believe, is to accommodate certain members of the ANC who have lost out on more senior positions elsewhere.

This is not in the best interest of Parliament, the public, or the relationship within the GNU. As a consequence, the DA will continue to withhold its names from the joint committees as our only guarantee that the ANC will first conclude the negotiations in a manner that is fair and where the best possible people for the job can be designated by both parties. We do so reluctantly, bearing in mind the short-term frustrations, but it is in the interest of effective committees in the long term.

Our only other option is to submit these names and for the ANC to then decide unilaterally who serves where. It is not in the interest of democracy or our voters to allow the ANC to strongarm GNU partners.

The ANC does not hold a majority in Parliament and the balance of power lies with the DA. We entered this Government of National Unity on the condition of governing collaboratively, and should the ANC continue to make unilateral decisions, it will soon find itself without our support. The sooner the ANC realises this, the sooner we can make progress in the country’s interest.

The ball is now in the ANC’s court. They can either continue acting in bad faith, risking a crippling effect on Parliament, or return to the negotiating table in good faith and allow the DA to designate our best members to ensure that Parliament functions.

We call on the ANC to resume negotiations urgently, so that we can get on with the work we were all elected to do.

Regards

George Michalakis MP
Chief Whip of the Democratic Alliance