Oversight Visits: I’m Not Asking Permission to Do My Job

Speaker,

I recently tried to arrange an oversight visit to Mitchells Plain Hospital.

The response I received was this: “Kindly note that all such requests are coordinated through the Office of the MEC.”

I am being told I must seek permission, from the executive, to oversee the executive.

There is no rule, no law, no parliamentary provision that requires a Member of this House to route oversight visits through the very office we are tasked with holding accountable. None.

To quote the DA’s Parliamentary Leader George Michalakis: “I have never given notice to an institution I’ve visited, because the floor is shiny when you give notice.”

He is right. The purpose of oversight is not to inconvenience departments.

It is to see public institutions as they actually are – not as they have been prepared to appear.

Mitchells Plain Hospital serves thousands of residents who depend on public healthcare.

As elected representatives, we have not just a right but a duty to understand the realities faced by healthcare workers and patients.

So, I am not here to seek clarity. I am not asking permission.

I am asserting the right of this House to conduct independent oversight – unannounced, unfiltered, and free from executive gatekeeping.

Because oversight controlled by those being overseen is not oversight. It is theatre.