South Africa

The flavour of the day for the Executive seems to be to issue veiled threats towards the Provinces. First we had Trevor Manuel slamming delivery and capacity at the Provincial level and now this week Minister of Provincial and Local Government Sydney Mufamadi issued a veil threat that the number of provinces may be reduced due to questions of "viability".

 

Fair enough. The Provinces do have a lot to answer for in a number of areas but the National government also has to bear some culpability for Provincial failures. A case in point is the National Council of Provinces (NCOP). In its own words the NCOP "was created to ensure that provinces and local government have a direct voice in Parliament when national laws are made. This is important because most of these laws have to be implemented, or carried out, in provinces and local government." In reality the NCOP has basically become a rubber stamp for laws passed by the National Assembly. Indeed I cannot think of a single instance when the NCOP rejected a law the National Assembly approved. Even when the NCOP looks like it might go against the Executive, pretty soon the big guns of the ANC are rolled out leaving the NCOP cowering in the corner.

 

Witness the latest dust-up over the appointment of ICASA councilors. Here the National Council of Provinces (NCOP) select committee for labour and public enterprises proposed stripping Parliament of its powers to appoint Independent Communication Authority of SA (Icasa) councillors, effectively giving that power to the Minister. This is after Icasa had warned the select committee that its proposed amendments would be unconstitutional and would undermine its independence. It was widely suggested that the Executive hadn't liked the original version of the law and had leaned heavily on the NCOP to get the outcome it wanted.

 

This is a sad state of affairs and very different from the original role envisioned of the NCOP in Parliament. What we have now is a rubber stamp that kow-tows at the first sign of the Parliamentary whip. This all brings me back to the latest mutterings of the Executive. If you treat someone like a child and constantly belittle their efforts by undermining them, what will you get? Not a vibrant and healthy sphere of government that's for sure. This is what amazes me, is that the Executive thinks that by basically usurping all the power at local and provincial govermnment level it will be building stronger provincial and local structures. Sounds a lot like "we had to destroy the village to save it" to me.

 

Maybe they had this in mind all along (semi-serious). I mean lets be honest, the real power in this country is not Parliament -- it is the ANC National Executive Committee. One way or another if the NEC says it, it will be done come hell or high water.