Debate on the Premier's State of the Province Address
by Dr LPHM Mtshali MPL
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PIETERMARITZBURG: 19th June 2009 Madam Speaker
South Africa is a parliamentary democracy in which power rests with elected legislatures. My party, the IFP, emerged in the last election as the Official Opposition in KwaZulu Natal and it has fallen to us to ensure that this Legislature remains and grows as the centre of power in this province that the buck starts and stops at the door of Parliament.
Our objective is threefold: we will ensure that this House holds the provincial government to account, we will protect the interests of all those voters who did not vote for the ruling party and we will strive to impart on this House the culture of our party - the values of pluralism and tolerance.
I would like to assure the ruling party that we will exercise vigorous oversight over the executive and ensure that the ruling party does not abuse its position in government. If and when it does abuse power, collectively or individually, for political or personal gain, we will insist that those responsible are made to account to the public. We will fight to make sure that our portfolio committees are both key to enabling oversight and accountability and adequate forums for proposing alternative solutions.
We will scrutinize the actions of the government to ensure that it governs for the benefit of all the people of KwaZulu Natal, not the select few. We will monitor all government policies and new laws and concentrate on those initiatives which, we believe, encroach on constitutional rights of our citizens or run against the vision of a democratic, non-racial society committed to the protection of minority interests.
At the same time, we will fight to ensure that only the issues of concern to the electorate are debated in this House and that irrelevant issues that create a smokescreen around the real concerns of the people of this province are exposed as such in the public eye.
It must be noted that if we expect the government to be held accountable for a transparent implementation of its manifesto, so should we, as the Official Opposition, account for our activities and we will do so by way of regular performance assessment audits against our own goals and the achievements of all other parties represented in this House.
But if effective parliamentary oversight is to become commonplace in this province, there has to be a radical change in the attitude on the part of the executive and those on whose votes it relies in this House. The government needs to respect the role Parliament and Parliamentarians are required to play according to our Constitution.
Oversight and accountability can be at their most effective if recognised by those in power as the central organising principle of our Constitution. The oversight role is often seen as that of opposition parties alone, designed to police and expose maladministration and corruption. Such a view, however, is limited and deficient and it does not do justice to either the government or us on the opposition benches.
Oversight and accountability help to ensure that the executive implements laws in a way required by the legislature and the dictates of the Constitution. The legislature is in this way able to keep control over the laws that it passes, and to promote the constitutional values of accountability and good governance.
Oversight must therefore be seen as one of the central tenets of our democracy because through it the legislature can ensure that the executive is carrying out its mandate, monitor the implementation of its legislative policy and draw on these experiences for future law-making. Through it we can ensure effective government. Seen in this light the oversight function of legislatures complements rather than hampers the effective delivery of services with which the executive is entrusted.
Accountability is also designed to encourage open government. It serves the function of enhancing public confidence in government and ensures that the government is close and responsive to the people it governs. If the values of accountability and oversight and the purposes they serve in a constitutional democracy are materialised, members of the executive will more willingly submit to them, thereby fostering and enhancing the principle of co-operative government contained in the Constitution - and apparently very much desired by this government. Let us all work together to make it happen.
I thank you.
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