SUPPORT SERVICES FOR MEMBERS
BUILDING THE CAPACITY AND WELL-BEING OF MEMBERS
Having attained the rights and freedoms which were not accorded to all under the apartheid regime, the post-1994 democratic Parliament of South Africa strives to be an effective peoples’ Parliament responsive to the needs of all the people. That means its Members must have the support services – including health and well-being facilities – to enable them to achieve a better quality of life for their people, says the National Assembly Member charged with arranging for those services.
Mr Ben Skosana, MP, in Cape Town. Mr Skosana has been a Member of the National Assembly for the Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP) since 1994 and is House Chairperson on Internal Arrangements. He also serves on the Portfolio Committee on International Relations. Mr Skosana has previously served on the Portfolio Committee on Reconstruction and Development (1994-1995) and he chaired the IFP Parliamentary Caucus (1997). He served as Minister of Correctional Services from 1998 until 2004.
Olivier Bernier wrote in Words of Fire, Deeds of Blood: “The French Revolution, in less than four years, changed the World. From the moment Louis XVI walked up the steps of the guillotine, no other European monarch felt safe again…. (France gave itself a constitution and a Legislature).
The liberties the French claimed for themselves – of religion, of the press, of assembly, of thought; the right to be taxed only if their representatives had first consented; equality before the law and the end of privileges – all these startling innovations soon appeared to be the normal requirements without which no state could claim legitimacy.” Centuries on, the long and tortuous struggle waged by black people in South Africa against colonial exploitation and the legendary oppressive apartheid rule culminated in the victorious constitutional and parliamentary democracy inclusive of all the people of South Africa. South
40 | The Parliamentarian | 2013: Issue One - South Africa
Africans, like the French, attained for themselves substantive rights and freedoms without which the apartheid state failed to claim legitimacy. Ideally, the vision of the newly found democratic Legislature from 1994 was to build an effective Peoples’ Parliament responsive to the needs of all the people, driven by the ideal of realizing a better quality of life for all the people of South Africa.
Mr Ben Skosana, MP
Support so Members can deliver
The interests and facilities of the Members of Parliament are the necessary life-blood in the existence and functioning of any Parliament. In the South African Parliament, these are generally referred to as the “implements of the trade” that are determined by the Members of Parliament themselves. However, this approach still presents Parliament with enormous challenges. These “implements of the trade” have become incrementally – and
at times radically – sophisticated, primarily as a result of the demands of their daily responsibilities as the elected representatives of the people. These implements range from travel to security, office equipment, accommodation, mobile computer devices, facilities for Members with disabilities, institutional support, et cetera.
Our constitution empowers the National Assembly to elect Presiding Officers to assist the Speaker and
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