ESTABLISHMENT OF A PERMANENT COMMITTEE TO PROVIDE OVERSIGHT ON THE WORK OF THE PRESIDENCY

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ESTABLISHMENT OF A PERMANENT COMMITTEE TO PROVIDE OVERSIGHT ON THE WORK OF THE PRESIDENCY 

The Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) has been actively involved in the process to ensure that Parliament restores and strengthens mechanisms of horizontal accountability, particularly in relation to the Office of the Presidency. For too long, this office has exercised wide-ranging executive authority without a dedicated parliamentary structure to provide continuous scrutiny and oversight.

It is within this broader commitment that, in 2023, the EFF wrote to the then Speaker of the National Assembly to ask that she consider the establishment of a permanent committee to provide oversight on the work of the Presidency. We did so because we were concerned that there was a growing concentration of key state functions in the Office of the President, without there being a parliamentary mechanism for holding the Presidency to account in relation to these growing functions. 

Since its establishment, Parliament has never had a standing committee whose role was to provide oversight on the Presidency. This created an accountability lacuna, particularly as the Office of the President continued to centralise executive responsibilities.  

Over recent years, the Presidency has absorbed core functions such as Planning, Monitoring and Evaluation; State Security; and Women, Youth and Persons with Disabilities, while also housing major institutions like Statistics South Africa, the Government Communication and Information System, and the National Planning Commission. 

This rapid concentration of executive authority required a dedicated oversight mechanism to ensure that the Presidency does not operate outside the bounds of parliamentary scrutiny. 

The establishment of a separate Portfolio Committee on the Presidency therefore gives effect to Parliament’s constitutional mandate contained in sections 42(3) and 55(2)(b), which require the National Assembly to maintain oversight of national executive authority and to ensure that all organs of state are accountable. 

It ensures that the Presidency will now be subjected to the same level of structured, rigorous and ongoing oversight applied to all other government departments. As the EFF has consistently argued, Parliament’s scrutiny of the activities of the Office of the Presidency constitutes a mechanism of horizontal accountability, ensuring that executive power is subject to institutional checks and transparency requirements. The establishment of this committee is an affirmation of that principle and a necessary step in strengthening democracy. 

We further support the recommendations relating to the Committee on Government Undertakings and Petitions, as well as the adjustments to the Rules on questions. These reforms will ensure that undertakings made by government are properly monitored, evaluated, and followed through, preventing commitments from disappearing without consequence. 

The EFF remains committed to holding government accountable by offering rigorous, robust and constructive opposition based on superior logic and evidence-based substantive criticism. 

Our support for the establishment of this committee reflects our unwavering commitment to building a Parliament that is accountable to the people, activist in its approach, and uncompromising in its constitutional duty to oversee executive action. 

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