Parliament is doing more oversight work, but South Africans need to be able to see whether that work is actually fixing the problems it identifies.
This is one of the central findings of OUTA’s eighth annual Parliamentary Oversight Report, Watching the Watchers: Parliament Through the Eyes of Civil Society, which assesses the second year of the 7th Parliament.
The report covers the period from 1 July 2025 to 30 June 2026 and examines both Parliament’s oversight mechanisms and civil society’s experience of how those mechanisms work in practice.
OUTA acknowledges encouraging signs. Committees are active, MPs are asking questions, oversight visits are taking place, public hearings continue, and important concerns are being placed on the public record.
But activity is not the same as accountability.
“Parliament is busy, and that matters. Committees are meeting, MPs are asking questions, oversight visits are taking place and important concerns are being placed on the public record,” says Naailah Parbhoo, Senior Researcher at OUTA.
“But activity alone does not mean accountability has been achieved. The real test is what happens after the problem has been identified.”
The missing link: what happened next?
Parliament generates an enormous amount of information through committee reports, Budgetary Review and Recommendation Reports (BRRRs), parliamentary questions, petitions, oversight visits, public submissions and departmental progress reports.
What remains difficult for the public to establish is what happened next.
Who was required to act? What deadline was set? Was the recommendation implemented? Were there consequences for failure? Was the underlying problem fixed?
This matters because many of the same failures continue to surface across government: weak financial controls, procurement failures, leadership instability, delayed infrastructure projects, poor information systems, irregular expenditure and inadequate consequence management.
When the same problems repeatedly return, Parliament needs to demonstrate not only that it identified them, but what happened as a result.
“A committee report should not be the end of the story,” says Parbhoo.
“Citizens should be able to see who was required to act, when action was due, what evidence was submitted and whether the underlying problem was actually corrected.”
OUTA recommends that Parliament make this information accessible, searchable and understandable, including through plain-language summaries.
Citizens should not need specialist knowledge of parliamentary processes or have to search through years of reports and meeting records to establish whether Parliament’s recommendations resulted in action.
Accountability cannot reset with political changes
Government failures do not disappear when an electoral term ends, committee membership changes or leadership is reshuffled.
Unresolved audit findings, incomplete inquiries and unfulfilled executive commitments should remain on Parliament’s agenda until there is credible evidence that they have been addressed, or a clear and publicly recorded decision has been made to close the matter.
“Government does not get a clean slate because Parliament has shuffled the seats,” says Parbhoo.
“Accountability must follow the issue, not the individual or the political term. That continuity is essential if Parliament wants to rebuild public trust.”
Six reforms OUTA wants Parliament to prioritise
OUTA’s report proposes six priority reforms for the remainder of the 7th Parliament:
- Adopt a term-wide oversight and reform plan: Set clear priorities, responsibilities, deadlines and annual public reporting requirements.
- Create accessible tracking platforms: Allow the public to track recommendations, undertakings, petitions and other unresolved matters from identification through to action or closure.
- Introduce minimum standards for committee performance: Improve preparation, timely publication of documents and consistent follow-up.
- Strengthen meaningful and inclusive public participation: Show people how their submissions, petitions and concerns were considered and what resulted from them.
- Improve ethics enforcement: Set clear investigation timelines, publish accessible findings and ensure appropriate sanctions where wrongdoing is established.
- Deepen budget and expenditure oversight: Connect public spending and audit findings to institutional performance and actual service-delivery outcomes.
The report also calls for a term-wide oversight and reform plan for the remainder of the 7th Parliament. This should identify priority risk areas, assign responsibilities to relevant committees, set achievable targets and deadlines, and provide regular public reporting on progress.
Oversight does not fit neatly into a parliamentary year
The report draws on data presented through ParliMeter as well as OUTA’s own parliamentary engagement across governance, infrastructure, electricity, transport, Sector Education and Training Authorities (SETAs), executive expenditure, delinquent directors and whistleblower protection.
These cases demonstrate why effective oversight cannot always be measured within a single committee meeting, report or parliamentary year.
Some accountability matters take years to resolve. Parliament needs systems capable of following them for as long as necessary.
The report also acknowledges improvements in public access to Parliament, including public broadcasts and opportunities for online participation. However, barriers remain, including unequal connectivity, data costs, language, accessibility for people with disabilities and short notice for public participation processes.
Parliament does not need to promise that every problem will be solved immediately.
It does need to show that problems have not simply disappeared into another report, another committee or another parliamentary term.
OUTA believes the 7th Parliament has an opportunity to strengthen public trust by making the outcomes of its oversight work as visible as the activity itself.
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