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Each year around this time, with monotonous regularity, the National Assembly’s (NA’s) Standing Committee on Appropriations and its NCOP counterpart issue notices calling for written submissions on the Medium Term Budget Policy Statement (MTBPS), the Division of Revenue Amendment Bill, the Adjustments Appropriation Bill and any ‘special’ Appropriation Bills necessary to keep the show on the road.
Dividing revenue received nationally between local, provincial and national government according to the equitable share principle, the 2024 Division of Revenue Amendment Bill provides for additional allocations to those made by the Division of Revenue Bill tabled with the February Budget – and subsequently enacted and operationalised.
The 2024 Adjustments Appropriation Bill provides for changes in the amounts allocated to national departments in the Appropriation Bill, which is also tabled with the February Budget – and also subsequently enacted and operationalised.
This year, there’s a Special Appropriation Bill allocating additional amounts to The Presidency and the Departments of Justice & Constitutional Development, Transport, and International Relations & Co-operation. Last year, there wasn’t one – but in 2022 additional allocations were made to the Departments of Public Enterprises and Transport.
So, basically, all three pieces of legislation are top-up Bills.
Although, of course, anyone reading this probably already knows that – as well as why we have an MTBPS and why it’s necessary to amend or adjust amounts allocated here and there by Bills tabled with the February Budget, passed and enacted long before the MTBPS process. But for anyone who doesn’t, the Parliamentary Monitoring Group (PMG) explainer and National Treasury’s fact sheet might help.
Last week, the NCOP’s Appropriations Committee issued its annual notice calling for input before the NA’s was posted on Parliament’s website. Not a big deal if you don’t follow and report on parliamentary processes for valued clients interested in those kinds of things. But procedurally speaking, the process should begin with a call for submissions from the NA committee, followed by parliamentary hearings, a second reading debate in the House, a call for input from the NCOP committee and consideration during an NCOP plenary – at which point these types of Bills are usually passed and sent to the President for signature. With briefings, discussions, and support staff compiling reports for tabling in the committees’ respective Houses in between, naturally.
Under pressure when the notices calling for submissions were published, we didn’t notice that the first notice had been issued by the NCOP committee. Foolishly (as it turned out), we assumed the NA committee would be first out of the starting block. Which caused a fair amount of reporting mayhem. So, we decided to look at the MTBPS and related division-of-revenue/appropriation Bill parliamentary committee process over the past seven years (two of which were different because of the Covid-19 lockdown).
Thanks to PMG records, this is what we found:
The Division of Revenue Amendment Bill, Adjustments Appropriation Bill and any Special Appropriation Bill are processed simultaneously by each committee.
On average, it takes seven weeks from the day of tabling for Parliament to process these Bills and for the ensuing Acts to be operationalised.
National Treasury briefs both committees separately on the Bills before hearings are held.
Both committees also receive separate briefings from the Financial & Fiscal Commission and Parliament’s Budget Office.
The NA and NCOP Appropriations Committees generally hold joint parliamentary hearings (although this year the hearings have been scheduled separately, with each committee dedicating one hearing to the Division of Revenue Amendment Bill).
The number of participants in these hearings varies but always includes (or may even be limited to) the South African Local Government Association and the Congress of South African Trade Unions.
Because the Division of Revenue Amendment Bill allocates money from the national fiscus to provincial and local government, the NCOP Appropriations Committee calls for and considers negotiating and final mandates on that Bill from each provincial legislature.
Although the NCOP committee holds separate meetings to consider each set of mandates, on average (from the date on which the committee considers provincial negotiating mandates) it takes the provincial legislatures five days to submit their final mandates.
Neither committee ever makes changes to the Bills.
Each year, much the same process is followed by these two committees when they deal with Division of Revenue and Appropriation Bills tabled with the Budget - although the time taken to pass and promulgate them tends to be longer, being two-and-a half months on average.
So, what’s public participation in the allocation of funds to the three spheres of government and national departments really all about? Meaningful engagement between stakeholders and committee members? Apparently not, if PMG reports are any indication. Influencing the contents of the statement and its associated Bills? Definitely not. Twice a year, year after year, these Bills leave Parliament exactly as they were tabled.
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