Johnathan Paoli
Parliament has expressed its dissatisfaction with the Minister of Public Enterprises Pravin Gordhan, by labeling him as the minister who has failed the most to answer written questions from members of Parliament.
Gordhan is currently sitting with 17 unanswered questions on his portfolio, which includes Eskom as well as other SOEs.
In addition, Parliament reported that Minister of Communications and Digital Technologies Mondli Gungubele as well as Minister in the Presidency Khumbudzo Ntshavheni, had a total of 17 outstanding questions between them.
While Small Business Development Minister Stella Ndabeni has been included in the list for her six outstanding questions.
The ambit of the list stretches back to February last year, including incidents where ministers were expected to reply in writing following their failure to respond to oral questions during House sittings.
Parliament said it was attempting to address the long-standing issue of unanswered questions within Parliament in a bid to ensure more effective and adequate responsibility.
Speaker Nosiviwe Mapisa-Nqakula wrote to the leader of government business, Paul Mashatile, requesting a meeting to discuss the issue and to find strategies to ensure that Cabinet members comply with Parliamentary rules.
Written parliamentary questions are questions posed by members of parliament to the government in writing and are used to extract more detailed information from the government, expose policy or implementation failures, or press for action.
They assist MPs to understand what departments are doing and force the minister and the staff of the department to defend their decisions.
Previously, Numsa accused Gordhan of overseeing a second instance of state capture, following the Gauteng High Court in Pretoria denying Gordhan permission to appeal the completion of Mango Airways’ sale.
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