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The Speaker of the National Assembly, Max Sisulu, has asked the Secretary to Parliament to conduct an investigation into the People’s Assembly hosted in Mangaung in September. This was confirmed in a letter I received from the Speaker’s office yesterday.

A copy of the letter can be found here.

The two-day People’s Assembly was intended to enable interaction between the public, members of the National Assembly and cabinet ministers. However, its poor organisation meant that South Africans had little to show for it apart from a R14 million bill. The event was marked by logistical failures, wasteful expenditure and insufficient public involvement.

The Democratic Alliance (DA) welcomes initiatives which seek to increase public participation in our democracy. However, poorly managed events such as the Mangaung Assembly do little to build public confidence in parliament, or encourage support for its work.

A second People’s Assembly, this time hosted by the National Council of Provinces (NCOP), will be held next month.

Parliament must make sure that it learns from the poor management of the Mangaung event. We cannot afford for the same mistakes to be made again.

I will today be writing to the Speaker to request that the necessary steps are taken to ensure that the NCOP People’s Assembly runs smoothly, and makes prudent use of public funds. I will also ask that the report compiled by the Secretary to Parliament into the Mangaung Assembly is made public as soon as Parliament’s investigation is completed.