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Parliament’s efforts to build its institutional capacity to deliver on its mandate, will receive a needed boost as a 14-member delegation of political party Chief Whips and Whips flew out today to Ghana and the United Kingdom on a study tour.

The high powered delegation led by the Chief Whip of the Majority Party, Mr. Jackson Mthembu will have an opportunity to learn from experiences of the two Parliaments that run on a Westminster system similar to South Africa model. Areas to be covered include:

• How oversight over the Executive arm of the state is conducted and how the Executive accounts to Parliament;
• The nature of relationships between the whips and the office bearers of the institutions;
• How committees and members are capacitated and supported to among others perform their parliamentary and constituency work; and
• How parties are supported as well as the regulation of party funding.

They will also learn how best to oversee the budget of Parliament. The study ends on 26 January 2018. The educational and benchmarking tours and visits of Members of Parliament are part of ongoing capacity building programme that is aimed at sharpening the competencies of Parliament in passing laws, holding the Executive accountable and enhancing public participation.

The multi-party delegation includes the following Chief Whips, Deputy Chief Whips and a whip - Ms Dorries Dlakude (ANC); Mr John Steenhuisen & Mr Michael Waters (DA); Mr Nyiko Shivambu & Ms Hlengiwe Mkhaliphi (EFF); Mr Narend Singh (IFP); Prof Moses Khubisa (NFP); Mr Nqabayomzi Kwankwa (UDM; Dr Cornelius Mulder (FF Plus); Ms Cheryllyn Dudley (ACDP); Mr Lulama Ntshayisa (AIC) and Programming Whip Mr Fezile Bhengu. House Chairperson for Committees, Oversight and ICT, Mr Cedric Frolick is also part of the delegation.

Issued by Parliament of the Republic of South Africa