HIGHVELD – Mr Anthony Benadie, MPL Leader of the DA in Mpumalanga Legislature, the ANC once again took precedence over legislative functions.
“A sitting of the Mpumalanga Legislature, originally scheduled for Friday, 27 March to afford MPLs to pose questions to MECs, was first moved to 26 March and then postponed to this week without any explanation,” said Mr Benadie.
“It has now come to light that the ANC scheduled their Provincial General Council to begin on the same day as the sitting.”
According to Mr Benadie, the legislature has three main functions:
* Law making where MPLs discuss, debate, amend and vote for the province and initiate or prepare legislation.
* Oversight, where the oversight on the exercise of Provincial Executive authority in the province is maintained, including the implementation of legislation and any provincial organ of state, where budgets for provincial government departments are approved, where government officials are questioned about their work and where explanations on how government spent their previous budgets are seek.
* Public participation and education where public hearings are conducted on laws that are investigated and the public are educated on the law making process.
“It is blatantly obvious that the ANC holds very little regard for the importance of the functions of the Mpumalanga Legislature as an institution.
“Just over a month ago, a similar situation took place where the ANC cancelled a committee meeting at the eleventh hour in order to hold their own private meetings.
“MPLs will now have to abandon their constituency work to accommodate the sitting.
“When one takes into account a recent report by a newspaper, it is clear that the ANC is so caught up in their own infighting and struggles, that the dire situation the Mpumalanga Departments find themselves in, is of little or no interest to them.
“The functions that are performed within Legislature are essential to ensure that government can account to the people.
“The DA will write to the Speaker of the Legislature requesting her to provide the reasoning behind the cancellation and moving of the sittings.
“It goes beyond comprehension, considering the state of our province, that internal ANC happenings can take precedence over the business of our democratic institutions.”
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