The representation of women in the National Assembly of South Africa is among the highest in the region.
people? Members must think back to their constituencies and see whether something is feasible. But the Minister had actually declared that the budget for 2011/2012 was dedicated to the youth!
If you unpack the conditions
further, how many of young girls would meet all these conditions? To cut the story short, we varied the conditions and also moved the funds to the Youth Ministry. On representation, Members of
Parliament find time to relate with the entirety of their electorate through constituency consultations and outreach programmes. It is also important that the public have access to Parliament; that they attend and participate in public hearings at meetings of committees. Parliaments should broadcast their proceedings. There are also civil society’s
source of employment guaranteed under the Universal Declaration of Human Rights; but how many women are employed in the defence sector? Look at the health sector: Who are the major consumers of health services? These are women and children, so how much of the health budget is allocated to paediatric care? How much of it is allocated to obstetric care? Better still, is the health budget allocated according to the African Union’s Abuja Declaration which enjoins Heads of State to allocate 15 per cent of the budget to health? What about agriculture? Is the allocation in conformity with the Abuja Declaration? If it is not, what are we going to do about it as Members of Parliament?
Priorities, conditions and expectations
I would like to give two recent examples from the Uganda Parliament. The Minister of Health had presented a budget in which 60 per cent of the spending was for capacity-building. We forced this money to be re-allocated to maternal health and cancelled the workshops. The second example I would like to give was on the Youth Entrepreneurship Scheme where a sum of Uganda Shillings 44,000,000,000 was allocated to be managed by the Ministry of Finance. We forced them to relinquish the budget to the Youth Ministry. But what was even more important was the role Parliament played in alleviating the conditions
that the Minister of Finance had set for young people to access the funds:
1. That the applicant must have a minimum of an Ordinary Level Education Certificate (obviously this left out school dropouts);
2. That the business must be registered (how many people in Uganda have registered businesses?);
3. That the business must have been in existence for at least six months;
4. But the most interesting one was that the enterprise must demonstrate the capacity to employ six other young people. How many enterprises run by adults employ at least six
expectations. It should be possible for civil society to have an input into legislation, policy and programmes that are brought to Parliament. It is also important that Members have adequate information in a timely manner to inform the debates. Parliament should facilitate adequate research services.
However, on the African continent, Members of Parliament are also expected to provide other services, such as roads, hospitals and schools. It is, therefore, important that the public is educated on the roles of the Members of Parliament vis-à-vis the role of the executive. At a cultural level, Members of
Parliament are expected to participate in funerals, weddings, graduation functions et cetera, and many times they are judged harshly by the electorate for failing to fulfil these cultural norms. With sufficient and continuous education, information and explanations, I hope we that we shall graduate from this level.