On interventionist anti-poverty initiatives
Honourable Deputy Speaker
South Africa is one of the countries most adversely affected by the Covid-19 pandemic in Africa. By the end of November 2020, we accounted for the highest number of confirmed cases per capita - with approximately 800 000 cumulative cases, representing over a third, that is 36 percent of total cases on the continent.
In response, like most governments around the world, South Africa implemented a nationwide lockdown to prepare the necessary health infrastructure, as well as to minimise the spread of the virus. The initial lockdown, which began on 26 March 2020 and lasted for five weeks, was relatively stringent even by international standards, and helped contain the rapid spread of the coronavirus.
Although the pandemic continues to pose important risks to public health, the nationwide lockdown was always expected to lead to substantial short and long-term economic costs, especially to sectors such as manufacturing and tourism.
Official Labour Force Data shows that there were approximately 2.2 million fewer people employed in the second quarter of 2020 relative to the first - essentially erasing the last 10 years of job growth in the economy.
Only a partial recovery can be observed in data from the third quarter of the year, with employment still down by 1.7 million, relative to pre-pandemic levels. For example, research during the lockdown by the University of Cape Town’s Development Policy Research Unit, suggests that job losses have been concentrated among a range of already vulnerable groups.
Particularly, this affected individuals in the poorest households, less skilled and low-wage, informal workers, those with transient employment or persistent non-employment histories, and those living in poor urban communities, most particularly women.
This is not unique to South Africa, as labour markets across the world were heavily affected, with those at the bottom rung of the social ladder most adversely affected. As the world reeled from the emergence of the Covid-19 pandemic, the South African government moved rapidly to mitigate the expected health, social and economic impacts of the pandemic. For instance, government offered a range of support measures including social relief of 350 Rands per month to individuals who are currently unemployed.
In addition to the measures pertaining to the stimulus plan, government has extended the special Covid-19 grant and Temporary Employer/Employee Relief Scheme benefits. To date, over 50 billion Rands has been paid to workers in over 13 million payments, and a further 15.8 billion Rands is projected to be spent as the benefit is extended.
The Unemployment Insurance Fund continues to pay statutory benefits as per the Department’s mandate. An Interest Make-Up Scheme to assist companies in “financial distress” while sustaining existing jobs and productive capacity, has also been launched by the Department of Trade, Industry and Competition.
Even though this is not sufficient given current fiscal constraints, the interventionist approach that government has adopted will go a long way in providing a cushion against the chilly winds of poverty. Hence the government places a great deal of emphasis on employment stimulus, ramping up of investment opportunities, and identifying new sources of growth through various sectoral masterplans that are structured on the basis of social compacting.
These specific measures are aimed at improving productivity, investment and competitiveness. The implementation of the poultry masterplan for instance, is already bearing fruit in driving economic growth and job creation where 428 jobs have been created from over 735 million Rands of new investment. Similarly, in the sugar industry about 1 billion Rands has been set aside over five years towards industry transformation, in order to remedy inequalities experienced by black sugarcane growers.
Honourable Deputy Speaker
These social compacting initiatives are anchored on aggressive infrastructure investment, where over 250 billion Rands was set aside for water and sanitation, transport and human settlements under Strategic Integrated Projects with expected creation of 300 000 new jobs into the economy. On energy security, 2 600 megawatts from renewable energy, will be finalised this year under Bid Window 5. These measures are aimed at facilitating competitive and inclusive economy as outlined in the Economic Reconstruction and Recovery Plan.
On the question of the adequacy of the budget to fund anti-poverty initiatives in the current environment of fiscal constraints, we are confident that the 12,6 billion Rands allocation targeted at the employment stimulus, is adequate. Major benefits will come through economic activity that these resources seek to ignite. Some practical interventions, are on skills development where training will be extended to young people, particularly women who have lost jobs, or are redundant.
As mentioned earlier, the Covid-19 pandemic had a major impact on the tourism sector. As a response, the Department of Tourism in partnership with the private sector has developed a Tourism Sector Recovery Plan, which will soon be presented to Cabinet for approval.
The Plan outlines a set of interventions to ignite the recovery anchored on three strategic themes namely: protecting and rejuvenating supply, re-igniting demand and strengthening enabling capability for long term sustainability. We are confident that with this intervention, the sector and its entire value chain will be resuscitated.
We admit that under the current environment of fiscal constraint, the reduced budget tabled by the Minister of Finance can never be sufficient to address all the socio-economic challenges facing our country and further compounded by the Covid-19 pandemic. However, we do believe that the interventions listed earlier will go a long way towards mitigating the negative socio-economic impact of the pandemic on lives and livelihoods of South Africans.
Thank you
On preventing Covid-19 vaccines corruption
Honourable Deputy Speaker
This past week we shared with the members of the National Council of Provinces the same matter of mitigating risks and potential corruption in the acquisition, distribution and rollout of Covid-19 vaccines.
We can report here as well that as the Inter-Ministerial Committee on Covid-19 Vaccines, we have developed a Corruption Risk Mitigation Plan as one of the oversight mechanisms in the implementation of the Covid-19 vaccination plan. The IMC has sought to identify potential risks in the procurement of vaccines, of which we then adopted mitigation strategies required to address such risks.
In our view, procurement risk is greater when there are multiple purchasers and suppliers with no uniformity of quality and effectiveness of the product as it was the case with procurement of Personal Protective Equipment at the outbreak of this pandemic. On the contrary, in the acquisition of Covid-19 vaccines, there is limited room for such corruption as the market is highly regulated, with few manufacturers. Further to this, the product has to pass stringent quality assessment by the regulator, and the procurement is centralised at national level for ease of monitoring. There would also be no need for any additional procurement at the level of provinces, as they have limited function in terms of distribution, which is determined by national contract. Consequently, provinces would have to use the selected service provider and existing distribution arrangements for medicines which are already in place.
Let us remind the House that these measures have been adopted and are being implemented, in line with the Terms of the Reference of the Inter-Ministerial Committee on Covid-19 Vaccines. In this specific instance, the IMC is enjoined to “put in place measures to prevent corruption and wasteful expenditure in the procurement or distribution of vaccines”.
Honourable Deputy Speaker
Where non-disclosure agreements may be used to hide corruption, constitutional oversight bodies such as the Auditor-General of South Africa will have access to such non-disclosure agreements for probity audit. In addition to the Auditor-General, law enforcement agencies are doing their work on intelligence-driven measures of combating crime, fraud and corruption through the Fusion Centre.
These measures will enable us to deliver a successful vaccination plan and limit any possible corruption, whilst enabling South Africa to utilise this opportunity to grow local manufacturing capability, in line with the industrial policy of the country.
Our government agenda has been stated right from the beginning, that we do not only want to acquire these vaccines as manufactured elsewhere, but intend to locally manufacture them. As a country, we have the necessary expertise and infrastructure, and are confident of our capability to locally produce the life-saving Covid-19 vaccines, and associated technologies for development of vaccines for future pandemics.
For us to be successful in such aspirations, we must also counter activities such as the production of sub-standard or falsified vaccines. In this regard, we have put in place the following measures:
• All registered vaccine centres will be published on various platforms, for all citizens to have access to this information, and we are working on increasing the number of testing laboratories to expedite quality assurance of all vaccines produced.
• All suppliers will be requested to produce regulatory certificates to buyers, providing a unique identifier on delivery of the vaccines and online verification of that certificate.
Furthermore, we have through the communication workstream of the IMC, developed a public awareness campaign to conscientise the public on the dangers of utilising unregistered vaccine centres. There are also webinars and radio programmes that are being utilised to engage various stakeholders on vaccine corruption risks, as well as in how we could jointly implement mitigation measures. Communication of detection and prosecution of any corruption, will be done on a regular basis to enhance transparency and public accountability.
Ultimately, we are confident of the effectiveness of the plans we have made and the measures we have put in place to combat any form of corruption. This includes queue jumping that has been reported widely in the media as one of the risks. The most important intervention at this first phase, which is targeted at healthcare workers, is to require those being inoculated to produce proof of employment. This means that people cannot jump the queue by falsely claiming to be frontline workers in the healthcare sector.
We have also limited people’s ability to alter their work places once registered for vaccination as this is another potential strategy that queue-jumpers could use. In this instance, the use of the Electronic Vaccine Data System seeks to ensure that the right people are vaccinated as per the relevant phase.
Honourable Deputy Speaker
Together, we must ensure that we tackle any acts of corruption that take advantage of the plight of the people. We have a duty to defeat the Coronavirus and ensure the enjoyment of life and dignity for all as outlined in the Bill of Rights.
That is why we have activated whistle-blowing mechanisms through existing hotlines such as the Presidential Hotline, the Anti-corruption Hotline hosted by the Public Service Commission, and the Whistle-blowing Hotline of the Special Investigating Unit for the broader public to play their part in preventing and combating corruption.
Social partners at NEDLAC, interfaith leaders and traditional leaders are central to the public awareness campaign, which will raise the number of people taking vaccines including reporting corruption where it manifests itself. Already, we are mobilising public support for the vaccination programme, using all official languages on national, community, regional and commercial radio stations. Further we will make use of all communication platforms across the length and breadth of the country including in rural communities, to ensure that every citizen, no matter their location in the country, is reached with these messages.
Thank you.
On funds to settle land claims
Honourable Deputy Speaker,
We can confirm that the Inter-Ministerial Committee on Land Reform and Agriculture has been informed on the number of land claim cases under consideration by the Commission on the Restitution of Land Rights. The amount allocated by the Minister of Finance during the Budget Speech, is for settlement of 1 347 claims and the finalisation of 1 266 outstanding land claims over the 3-year Medium Term Expenditure Framework.
Honourable members will recall that the Commission on Restitution of Land Rights has to prioritise the settlement of older claims that were submitted by 31 December 1998, as directed by the Constitutional Court. In this regard, a significant amount of the Commission’s budget is for the settlement of outstanding claims. Over the past three years, the Commission on Restitution of Land Rights has been allocated a budget of about 3 billion Rands per financial year.
In this regard, 82 percent of the budget goes directly towards the purchase of land, or for the payment of financial compensation to the restitution beneficiaries who opt for cash compensation. The rest of the budgetary allocation goes to administrative functions.
Some of the examples include the settlement and finalisation of the Makgoba Community claim; Ragwadu Community in Limpopo, and Mgodi Community claim in KwaZulu-Natal totalling about 700 million Rands, Mathulini Community claim for 60 million Rands, and Mandlazini Community claim for about 79 million Rands also in KwaZulu-Natal.
Under the restitution programme, the major cost drivers are payments to consultants as part of the pre-settlement of claims. To date, project payments in support of land transfer or financial compensation, are the largest component of the expenditure, making up more than 80 percent of the restitution programme’s expenditure.
In essence, the 2019/2020 land claims budget can be broken down as follows:
• 42.7 percent of funds from government to the Commission was spent on purchasing land as part of the Restitution Programme;
• 56.9 percent of the budget was allocated for financial compensation to those claimants who selected the option of cash compensation; and
• 0.3 percent was spent on grants aimed at providing claimants with the necessary support in the development of the claimed land.
In the past three financial years, budget allocations to the Commission have gradually decreased.
As government, we acknowledge that the slow pace of land reform is costly to the fiscus and may be unsustainable. In most cases, it may cause frustration to those whose claims have not been finalised. Nonetheless, we are resolute in pursuing land reform with urgency.
Due to these delays, the Commission on Restitution of Land Rights has developed a Backlog Reduction Strategy intended to address two key issues, that is, defining and categorising the current backlogs, and developing a plan to eliminate backlogs.
The National Treasury has advised that it is difficult to estimate the total costs of remaining land claims. This decision is dependent on the preferences and circumstances of the relevant claimants, at a community, family or household level whether or not to settle for cash compensation.
However, the Minister of Finance will take guidance from the Inter-Ministerial Committee on Land Reform and the Minister of Agriculture, Land Reform and Rural Development on the estimation of claims that are likely to be compensated in cash.
Honourable Deputy Speaker
In support of land restitution and redistribution processes, government is releasing land that is in the hands of the state in order to advance the objectives of land reform. Furthermore, we will be releasing land under the state to address development pressures around urban and rural human settlements, agricultural production, and industrial development.
Having said this, government remains committed to the resolution taken by Parliament to amend Section 25 of the Constitution, which is why we have gazetted the Expropriation Bill of 2020. We look forward to Parliament finalising the required legislative amendments.
Thank you
On recalibrating the Human Resource Development Council to respond to youth unemployment
In essence, the Quarterly Labour Force Survey of the fourth quarter of 2020, shows substantial increase in unemployment compared to the third quarter of the same year. This is despite the increase in employment of 333 000 that was experienced during the same time compared to the third quarter of 2020. From these results, the youth have been hardest hit with an increase to 41.8 percent of youth not in education, employment or training between 15 and 34 years in quarter four of 2020, compared to 40.1 percent in quarter four of 2019. Of these, female youth are the hardest hit.
Understood in context of the Covid-19 pandemic and its impact on the economy and employment prospects for many young people, the statistics indicate that the following areas will be impacted:
• The country will continue to experience increased poverty and inequality based on the higher number of individuals who have lost their jobs, as the rate of unemployment has increased leading to further inequality with the poor becoming poorer.
• The reduced absorptive capacity of the economy will lead to further insecurity with regard to employment and income for the country’s labour force.
• Social cohesion will be affected due to the inability of the economy to prioritise the development of its youth, women and people living with disabilities.
However, like in all major crises, the Covid-19 pandemic presents new opportunities that need harnessing. For instance, the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic, has led to new knowledge economy that demands new capabilities in terms of e-skills to fight poverty and inequality. In this regard, the newly appointed Human Resource Development Council has resolved to recalibrate the human resources strategy to be skills-based, innovation-led, entrepreneurship-driven, and technologically-advanced as part of economic reconstruction and recovery.
In terms of doing things differently, the HRDC will put emphasis on the 21st century requirements for individuals who can transcend academic disciplines and artificial distinctions between the soft and hard sciences; bridge the divide between theory and knowledge and match classroom learning with market demands by extending its role beyond merely providing oversight, but also to include thought leadership to unlock opportunities for growth purposes within the digital economy.
Honourable Deputy Speaker
The potential to recover and reconstruct the South African economy lies in recognising that in order to reconstruct, we will need a youth-centric, multi-sectoral, strategic and innovative ethos that guides massive employment impacting positively on the demand and supply side of the labour market. This new approach sees youth as not only potential beneficiaries of jobs, but as co-creators of a new economy as well.
A study into Youth Labour Market Transitions by the National Planning Commission, concluded that there needs to be a change in approach on pathway management of youth from education to active economic participation. Youth development programmes must account for their different circumstances, constraints, needs and aspirations.
Honourable Deputy Speaker
In our view, the private sector also has a responsibility to contribute to making South Africa better. We must also look at young people as creators of industry.
We applaud the Department of Tourism for implementing amongst others, empowerment programmes for the youth in areas such as culinary, food safety, sommelier and hospitality. Young people in these programmes, also receive stipends as part of a comprehensive poverty alleviation response. The non-financial business support provided to SMMEs is critical in ensuring their sustanaibility,
At the same time, the stimulus contributes to catalysing economic recovery through the multiplier effects of spending in local economies. This spending directly supports small enterprises and the informal sector in townships and rural areas.
In the current phase of the Presidential Employment Stimulus, which was announced by the President, the target is providing 700 000 directly-funded opportunities. These range from public employment to livelihoods support for vulnerable categories of the self-employed and job retention schemes.
By the end of February this year, more than 550 000 opportunities were in implementation to support the employment of education and teacher assistants. Of this, more than 300 000 young people were employed as teacher and education assistants across 20,000 schools.
In addition to these interventions, we have over the past year laid the foundation to address the barriers facing young people in order to shift their trajectory from learning to earning, so that they are able to gain a foothold in the economy.
We are mindful of the dictates of the Future of Work, which requires us to adapt to the changing environment in the workplace. This means embracing digitisation, upgrading of workforce planning and reskilling, targeting of high growth sectors and roles, as well as finding opportunities for entrepreneurship.
Therefore, in implementing the Economic Reconstruction and Recovery Plan, our strategy should respond to young people who are digitally adept with information and communication technologies, demanding skills and expertise that will enable them to adapt adequately to a changing workplace and technological demands.
It is a fact that young people have immense potential that should be harnessed, especially for the poor majority who need us to address the structural factors pertaining to skills development, education and economic inclusion. No society should allow young people to wallow in hopelessness when there are possible solutions that can change the prevailing situation.
Thank you.
On implementing Eskom’s Turnaround Plan
Honourable Deputy Speaker
We appreciate the focus that the Inkatha Freedom Party is placing on the sustainability of Eskom, as this demonstrates their appreciation of the strategic nature of the utility and its impact to the South African economy. However, the debt level of 488 billion Rands that the Honourable Member is referring to, is debt as at the end March 2020. The current debt level as at end of September 2020 is 464 billion Rands. Therefore, these half-year results demonstrate a decline in Eskom’s debt.
We have on numerous occasions acknowledged the complexity of restructuring an entity such as Eskom and the amount of time it may take to realise the intended results. The frustrations of the public thereof, are understandable. We harbor no illusions to the reality faced by the power utility, which is shaped by legacy issues, as well as other challenges related to rising debt.
This is why we came up with Eskom’s turnaround plan that is focused on the following five areas:
• Operational recovery,
• Improving the utility’s income statement,
• Addressing the balance sheet,
• Accelerating the restructuring of Eskom into three divisions, and
• Building a high-performance organisation through addressing its corporate culture.
Under the leadership of the Group Executive for Transformation Management Office, who was appointed in July 2020 to focus on Eskom’s restructuring process, the following progress Year to Date for 2021 has been recorded:
• On improving the utility’s income statement, Eskom has realised savings of 4 billion Rands that was declared against a target of 3.1 billion Rands. This will further be complemented by a tariff increase of 15 percent for the 2022 financial year which has been granted to Eskom. In terms of employee costs, the second round of voluntary severance packages are underway, and net savings are expected to be realised in the 2022 financial year. Efforts are underway towards ensuring that procurement savings are delivered on. This is in line with the update that the Board of Eskom gave to the Standing Committee on Public Accounts on 04 March 2021.
• On efforts related to strengthening the balance sheet, a savings of 7.5 billon Rands has been realised in terms of capital expenditure. Processes are also underway to dispose non-core properties.
• In line with achieving operational efficiency, five units at Medupi and Kusile power stations that had design defects have been corrected, and this will contribute to sustainable energy provision by our new build programme. For instance, Kusile Unit 2 has added 720 megawatts to the national grid since its commercial operation in October 2020. Major defects at Ingula Pumped Storage Scheme, have been addressed and each of the four units are now performing at full capacity of 331 megawatts from previous 245 megawatts. Further, transmission network performance has returned to expected levels, and distribution performance remains stable.
• On restructuring Eskom into three divisions, divisionalisation was completed by March 2020 as the first step towards business separation, with functional separation to be completed by March 2021. The establishment of a separate Transmission subsidiary is still targeted for completion by December 2021, with Generation and Distribution by December 2022. Finalisation of this process will create the required certainty for prospective investors in generation capacity, in turn ensuring that bids are fairly adjudicated, relative to Eskom generation.
In our view, this is a demonstration that the sentiments by the Honourable Member that “none of the deadlines of Eskom’s Turnaround Strategy have been met”, are not factual. As the Political Task Team on Eskom, we are comfortable with the notable progress in Eskom’s recovery of its operational performance that has been made thus far.
Our current focus should be on addressing the elements that contribute to increasing the debt including the procurement function in the Turnaround Plan. The rising municipal debt, continues to pose serious risks to Eskom’s long-term financial sustainability. In fact, it contributes to liquidity challenges facing the entity. In this regard, a number of efforts are underway to address this challenge.
For instance, the Eskom Social Compact signed by government, business, labour and community constituencies at NEDLAC on 08 December 2020, is a key step to addressing this debt burden. It provides the foundation for future initiatives. The parties to the social compact, committed to supporting Eskom to joint solution to illegal connections and non-payment of the debt.
At the level of the Political Task Team on Eskom, we have established the Multi-Disciplinary Revenue Committee made up of the departments of Public Works and Infrastructure, Public Enterprises, Human Settlements, Water and Sanitation, CoGTA, National Treasury, SALGA, and Eskom. The mandate of this sub-committee under the coordination of National Treasury, is to improve revenue management in municipalities, which encompasses addressing debt issues but also to ensure the reduction in debt owed by municipalities.
In this regard, the Eskom Political Task Team is encouraged by the progress made in the collection of 4 billion Rands of outstanding debt by provinces between 01 April 2020 and 01 December 2020. Honourable Hlengwa should be relieved by this progress, following communication to the Leader of Government Business on 11 March 2020, on the development of a roadmap towards ensuring that the debt to Eskom is settled.
Honourable Deputy Speaker
In many instances, the municipal debt to Eskom is largely caused by arrear accounts, interest on outstanding debt, and exceeding the Notified Maximum Demand. In this way, municipality debt continues to grow, placing more pressure on their financial sustainability and inability to pay back Eskom thereby impacting on their capacity to provide services.
It is for this reason that an active partnering model between Eskom and municipalities with high debt levels, is being considered by the Political Task Team on Eskom in order to improve revenue collections. In this case, Eskom would act on behalf of the municipality, maintain and operate its networks, bill and collect all revenue due to the municipality. The envisaged benefits of this model are:
• Enabling the municipality to discharge its constitutional duties, by providing reliable electricity to its customers;
• Curbing the municipal debt increase; and
• Improving the municipality’s revenue collection.
We invite all of us to support this proposal in line with our responsibility of improving the culture of payment for services such as electricity and water by our communities. Across political divide, we must join in the comprehensive campaign of encouraging communities to pay for electricity and other services they consume.
We reiterate the campaign by the Political Task Team on Eskom to pay for municipal services, just as we do with other private services. This campaign also targets illegal connections, ghost vending, meter tampering related to electricity and water. In our view, addressing the issue of non-payment will contribute in turning around the financial situation of Eskom thus delivering on the overall Turnaround Plan.
We therefore, make this clarion call on all our communities to pay for electricity in order to enable Eskom and municipalities to provide services in a continuously and sustainable manner.
Thank you.
On Executive accountability to Parliament
Honourable Chairperson
Yes, the Executive remains accountable to the National Assembly and has demonstrably done so through various mechanisms like appearing in portfolio committees and responding to questions for oral and written replies.
As Leader of Government in Parliament, we have previously affirmed the centrality of this institution in ensuring that accountability of the Executive is upheld at all times. As the Executive, we regard accountability to Parliament as a platform to bridge the social distance between the people and their elected representatives. Therefore, being accountable to Parliament by the Executive, fosters the unity of our nation and it promotes people’s participation in policy and legislative processes.
In any event, Section 92 (2) and (3) of the Constitution, stipulates that Members of Cabinet are accountable collectively and individually to Parliament for the exercise of their powers and the performance of their functions. Furthermore, Section 93 (3) (b) stipulates that Members of Cabinet must provide Parliament with full and regular reports concerning matters under their control.
In this regard, Parliament relies more on the Leader of Government Business to execute its oversight function with regard to programming, ensuring Executive accountability, including amongst other things, responding to Parliamentary questions for oral and written reply. To this end, we continuously engage and monitor the Executive on matters of their accountability to Parliament.
This is done through reports we present to Cabinet regarding outstanding replies by Ministers in both the National Assembly and the National Council of Provinces. We further make requests to the Executive to provide reasons for non-compliance thereof, and remedial actions to be taken to address outstanding replies.
What has transpired is that most outstanding or lapsed replies, would have had tight timelines whereas required information resides in other organs of state beyond the respective Member of the Executive. Once this information has been received, it would still undergo the verification process to avoid misleading Parliament.
However, Parliament should rest assured that we are continuously improving. Since we resumed this responsibility in the Sixth Administration, we have had continuous engagements with members of the Executive who had larger numbers of outstanding replies. We have since recorded a decline in the number of lapsed questions.
It is true that 172 question were not responded to by the Executive during 2020 session of Parliament, and the relevant Members of the Executive were duly advised about the number of outstanding replies before the questions lapsed.
For the lapsed questions for written reply in 2020, we must acknowledge the disruption by the Covid-19 pandemic. Similarly, Members of the Executive had to contend with limitations brought by the lockdown regulations and had to adjust to new ways of executing responsibilities.
Honourable Chairperson
If Parliament is of the view that the Executive is not accountable, Rule 136 of the National Assembly gives the power to the Speaker to establish a system to monitor, and report to the Leader of Government Business in Parliament on any steps to be taken against the Member of the Executive who has not complied with the rules of Parliament.
Similarly, Parliamentary Committees have wide ranging powers in terms of Rule 167 to summon Members of the Executive to explain themselves, and to produce documents where necessary. In this regard, the ultimate power of reprimand rests with Parliament to hold the Executive accountable.
On our part, we will continue to engage the Executive in terms of their responsibilities to Parliament, including monitoring the quality of their responses to Parliamentary questions.
To this end, Cabinet has since delegated the Minister in the Presidency responsible for Planning, Monitoring and Evaluation to develop a framework to monitor implementation of the Legislative Programme and Executive Accountability as part of the measures to strengthen Executive accountability to Parliament.
Thank you.
Date:
Wednesday, March 17, 2021 - 20:30
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