ELECTION fever has gripped MPs resulting in Parliament committees being suspended due to poor attendance and lack of quorum, it has emerged.
Report by Veneranda Langa
Deputy Speaker of the House of Assembly Nomalanga Khumalo was last week forced to announce the suspension of committee meetings after legislators showed disinterest in attending as they concentrated on election campaigning.
“I have to inform the House that due to the primary elections being conducted by various political parties and the high prevalence of no quorums for committee meetings, business of committees will be suspended,” Khumalo said last week.
“Business of all committees of Parliament will be suspended sine die with effect from Friday, June 21.”
About 20 committee meetings were said to have been cancelled in the past two weeks due to lack of quorum.
Contribution to debate on reports tabled by committees before Parliament has also been very low as Parliament nears automatic dissolution on June 29.
Recently, important reports on diamond mining, chrome mining, local government, and small and medium enterprises were presented before the House of Assembly, but MPs were not interested in taking part in debate. A fortnight ago, Senate had to be adjourned after 12 minutes as there was no contribution to debate on motions on the order paper.
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Question time in the House of Assembly on Wednesdays, as well as in the Senate on Thursday has also been characterised by very low turnout by ministers.
Last Tuesday, the House of Assembly was adjourned after sitting for only 15 minutes.
Sitting in both Houses of Parliament resumes today with expectations that the Defence and Home Affairs committee will present a report on its findings on visits to voter registration centres at different provinces in the country.
