The Womxn and Democracy Initiative and the Parliamentary Monitoring Group undertook monitoring of the information that was available regarding National Parliament committee meetings from April 2020 through to 31 March 2021 during the first year of the National State of Disaster.The purpose of this research was to assess the extent to which parliamentary committees have complied with their obligation to be open and transparent, and to facilitate public access under the conditions of the pandemic.
After four years of implementation of the Putting People in People’s Parliament Project the implementing partners have distilled key lessons and advocacy work for the future to increase public access to our legislatures.
The move of legislatures to hold committee meetings on online meeting platforms and stream on online platforms, opened a world of possibilities to increase their reach to a wide spectrum of the public. The PPiPP project undertook work to ensure that the gains made during C19 pandemic are not lost, and to address some of the widening inequality in access that resulted due to the high costs of data and tech.
The PPiPP project ran for four years from 2018 to 2021, at its heart was a wide range of people, working in CSOs who together worked to increase the claims of the public on our legislatures to promote delivery on social justice and human rights in South Africa.
This presentation shares lessons learnt and ideas for CSOs and provincial legislatures to improve public access to information from PLs.
The presentation establishes key points for civil society engagement to potentially influence the development of Provincial Money Bill’s legislation during 2022 and beyond. It is based on information in the Status of Money Bills – November 2021 update report.
The Speaker of the ECPL addressed the civil society event on issues of improving engagements between PLs and CSOs.
The Democracy Works Foundation provided this reflection on their experience leading the Civil Society Participation in Provincial Legislatures Programme. Reflecting on experiences and lessons learnt by CSOs in the Northern Cape and Limpopo Provinces. Presented at a DOI led round-table in September 2021.
Landrosa describes the experiences of attempts to increase engagements for social justice in GPL and challenges posed to public participation as a result of the political system presented at DOI led round table 14 09 2021.
Seán Muller
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25 Feb, 2022
The purpose of this report is primarily to provide an update on the status of money bills amendment legislation across provincial legislatures in South Africa. It follows from an earlier, much more detailed, report: Fiscal Oversight by Parliament and Provincial Legislatures (2019). Readers who are interested in more background, technical detail and analysis should read the earlier report as well.
This booklet is about what happens when ‘the people’ go inside parliament to participate in processes of law-making and oversight.
PPiPP partners, The Public Service Accountability Monitor (PSAM) have created an easily accessible resource titled 'A People's Guide to the Adjusted Budget 2021/22'. The Guide provides an explanation on the changes to the amounts of money allocated to departments and their programmes after the passing of the national budget in Parliament.This year's guide notes changes to the education, water and sanitation and other sectors while providing an overview of Covid-19 related spending.
The Parliamentary Monitoring Group and the Dullah Omar Institute’s overall intention with this project is to support transparency and public access to information. We did this by assessing how often parliamentary committees rely on requests for information in addition to that which is presented or provided to committees during the public space of a meeting; to try to assess the extent to which departments comply with these requests; and to see how available these documents are to the public. The research concludes that the systems and processes to ensure that such additional requested information is both provided to committees by departments and made available to the public require urgent attention. Otherwise, the effect is that the Executive responses to Committees oversight questions are never made public. This is the equivalent of an ‘in camera’ meeting.
This submission follows two previous substantive communications relating to the functioning of the legislatures during the national disaster that were sent on 25 March 2020 and on 10 April 2020. These communications, the substantive issues raised, and our offers to support Parliament in its efforts to operate as a public forum serving the interests of the people of South Africa, have been met with silence from your respective offices. What follows is an assessment of how we have experienced the recent efforts of the National Parliament in migrating to full time virtual meetings, and proposals for enhancements in the mechanisms to be used to ensure that no citizen is left behind.
Dullah Omar Institute
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10 Apr, 2020
On 25 March 2020, a group of civil society organisations working towards open and accountable legislatures, with a vested interest in promoting participatory democracy sent a letter which sought to engage Parliament prior to the period of lockdown. Despite making several recommendations to ready the institution and legislatures to continue their work into the state of disaster. The response from the legislatures was weak. Following a lack of response to the original letter, these organisations and others have today written again to the leadership of national and provincial legislatures appealing to them to ensure transparency, effective legislative oversight, and public engagement during the national state of disaster. The organisations have also again offered to support the legislatures as they grapple with some of these difficult, but critical questions.
Dullah Omar Institute
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25 Mar, 2020
11 CSOs working towards open and accountable legislatures have sent an open letter to the Speakers of Parliament and the Provincial Legislatures, and to the Chairperson of the National Council of Provinces to encourage measures to support their functioning within South Africa’s Constitutional Democracy during this time of crisis and uncertainty. Even though elected representatives should not meet physically due to the lock-down and social distancing, they and the legislatures, continue to have an important democratic role to play, to exercise oversight over the executive and to ensure that the experiences of people most marginalised in our society are taken into account in planning and implementation during this period.
The Putting the People in ‘People’s Parliament’ Project (PPiPP) works to increase the participation of civil society organisations in legislatures, particularly at provincial level, including through increasing public knowledge on the role of legislatures and legislature processes. One important aspect of this is oversight of public finances. In line with that objective, this report constitutes a first attempt to understand public finance oversight processes, in theory and practice, at the provincial level. To do so, it first discusses national legislation and processes, then examines the corresponding situation at provincial level (in Gauteng, the Eastern Cape and Western Cape). The drafting of provincial money bills amendment legislation presents both an opportunity to reflect on and improve these processes, but is also a risk in as much as it could cement failings of the status quo.
Moving Online, Opening the (Virtual) Door: Public Access to Online Committee Meetings in National Parliament during Lockdown Research Report
