S'THEMBISO MSOMI | MPs need to learn the difference between being robust and rigorous versus being downright rude

One of the wonderful consequences of last year’s national elections is that parliament has become much more robust and vibrant than it used to be.

Gone are the days when public interest in the National Assembly and the National Council of Provinces only happened at the beginning of the year when the two houses gathered for the president’s state of the nation address and the accompanying red-carpet fashion show.

Now, citizens follow developments in the house almost daily and, unlike in the past, most can tell the difference between the National Assembly speaker and a party chief whip.

We may still not know which MPs represent which electoral constituencies, but many of us would not struggle to recognise a healthy number of the faces of the men and women representing various political parties in the two houses of parliament.

This is largely because the legislature has, especially after the May 2024 elections, taken centre-stage in our body politic – it is where most of the business of running the country is discussed. A centre of power, as it were.

Long gone are the days when the institution was dismissed as a mere rubber stamp for the executive, where what the president or his ministers wanted would be endorsed without much questioning.

Now ministers, their deputies and heads of other public institutions go to account before parliamentary portfolio committees, expecting a tough grilling.

Parliamentarians seem to have largely taken to heart criticism by bodies such as the Zondo commission, as well as the public, that one of the reasons corruption and corporate capture of the state became so endemic over the last 15 years was because MPs had largely abdicated their watchdog role.

Of course, the ANC’s majority has shrunk – leading to more seats for various opposition parties – has added impetus to the transformation of the two houses into robust activist bodies.

Portfolio committees, especially, have become sites of important struggles and engagements with MPs not shying away from putting ministers and their departments under scrutiny.

One recent example has been the portfolio committee on higher education, whose probing cajoled minister Nobuhle Nkabane into reversing her shameful decision to pack the new boards of various sector education and training authorities with individuals connected to her party and its leaders.

Though she has said the process will be started afresh, the minister may still find herself in trouble if she fails to provide satisfactory answers to further questions that have been put to her by members of this committee, subsequent to her decision.

The remarkable thing about the committee, chaired by an ANC MP, is that its members appear to have worked across the political divide in seeking answers. Nkabane, or any other minister for that matter, can no longer appear before a portfolio committee confident that members from his or her party would close ranks with him or her, no matter what.

However, this positive development has also been accompanied by a worrying phenomenon that borders on bullying.

Some MPs, maybe due to inexperience and the temptation to become social media stars, are ignoring the delicate balance between being robust and rigorous vs being downright rude.

While the almost-universal condemnation of Nkabane’s attitude and behaviour during her last appearance before the portfolio committee is perfectly justified, some of the MPs in that committee did not conduct themselves in an exemplary manner either.

The same can be said about some members of the portfolio committee on sports, arts and culture. Given how soccer-mad we are as the majority of the country, news that the SA Football Association was going to appear before parliament caused much excitement.

Though, on the field of play, South African football is in a much better state than it was, say, a decade ago, there’s still just too many administrative and boardroom level problems that cannot be resolved simply by Safa president Danny Jordaan and his national executive committee appearing on a Robert Marawa radio show or by visiting Andile Ncube at SABC towers.

The committee seemed a perfect platform. But, alas, some MPs didn’t take this responsibility seriously and, therefore, failed to do their homework. Hence, we had an MP grilling Safa bosses about Bafana Bafana not having enough players from the coloured community.

This, in 2025, where many of our best and prominent players in Bafana, other national teams and football clubs actually hail from this community. Only a person with a scant interest in Bafana would make such an ignorant claim. There were other troubling instances, like when MPs appeared to be demanding that the association publicly reveal contractually confidential information about commercial deals with outside parties.

Some of the MPs probably left the meeting satisfied that they had “cooked” Jordaan and his committee “in a small pot”, as they say where I’m from. But the reality is that while the football body’s delegation may have been embarrassed in one or two instances, we are still none the wiser about a number of governance issues at the association.

It has only been a year for some of the MPs. Hopefully, they’ll improve.