Parliament gears up to deliberate on the budget votes for various departments, including the Presidency, as pressure is mounting to meet the end-of-July deadline for the finalisation of the Budget.
The budget votes will kick off on Friday with the Small Business Development Department, and the Department of Forestry, Fisheries and the Environment being the first to present their policy speeches.
During a briefing to the National Assembly Programme Committee on Thursday, Cameron Dugmore, the committee whip, outlined that the schedule is expected to run until the end of July.
The budget vote for the Presidency will occupy two days of scrutiny between July 16 and 17, and Parliament on July 15, with all deliberations culminating in a vote on the Appropriation Bill in the National Assembly set for July 23.
The National Council of Provinces has its programme that will culminate in the passing of the Budget at the end of July.
However, not all discussions have been smooth.
Dugmore told the MPs that there have been one or two issues the officials were engaging on around scheduling the Sport, Arts and Culture budget vote.
“But we don’t need to get into that now, in my view,” he said before outlining some of the budget votes lined up for the week until next Friday.
National Assembly Speaker Thoko Didiza said they had received a request from the Sports Portfolio Committee to look at the amendment of their budget vote schedule for Tuesday.
“We are still waiting to engage the committee and the minister on the issue because it looks like they are not on the same page. The minister is ready to continue on Tuesday, but the committee feels that there is a new document that they need to bring to the committee, and they would like to have some engagement before the budget debate is taken,” she said.
“I just thought it was important to appraise the members to understand why there might be a need to amend that date,” Didiza said.
MK Party MK Visvin Reddy raised concerns with the way the committees were structured during the days of the upcoming budget votes.
“I want to appeal to the technical staff that when they schedule the debates, try not to have committees that sit on a Monday and Tuesday at the same time,” he said.
“So you find that there are multiple debates that are stacked across two venues, and with some sessions running right until 6pm. Maybe, if you could please allow the people to start to relook and reconfigure these meetings so that they are manageable,” he said.
House Chairperson Cedric Frolick said he has sent out a memorandum indicating the arrangements for what happens during mini plenaries as far as committee meetings are concerned.
“I indicated that committees will be allowed to meet, but an application must be submitted that indicates the impact that it will have on their committee members who are participating in possible debates. This is to ensure that the attendance of mini plenaries is not adversely affected by these committee meetings. Preference will be given to those committees dealing with legislation, and we heard the discussion about the urgency of legislation earlier, statutory appointments, as well as those committees that are still finalising their budget vote and related reports,” Frolick said.
He said an updated list will be sent out to all those committees that have been approved to meet during the mini plenaries.
“That includes Tuesday, Wednesday, and Friday,” added Frolick.
