Appropriation Bill faces uncertainty as legal concerns mount
Image: Itumeleng English / Independent Newspapers
The fate of the Appropriation Bill hangs in the balance as the Standing Committee on Appropriations is saddled with a legal opinion stating how voting should take place if the bill is to be passed.
This came up when committee chairperson Mmusi Maimane briefed the parliamentarians about a legal opinion he received from the parliamentary legal services at the conclusion of the public hearing on the 2025 Eskom Debt Amendment Bill on Wednesday.
Maimane said their job as the committee was not to get involved necessarily with the politics of goings-on inside the Government of National Unity.
'All I sought to seek is a legal opinion, guiding, whether, when we do scheduling of votes, what happens in an event when some don't pass and some do, given this was consultation on the Appropriations Bill,' he said.
Maimane also said the National Assembly table has advised that the Appropriations Bill has to be adopted in its entirety if it is going to pass.
'Therefore, it will mean that if it fails to pass in its entirety, it will have to return to this respective committee to then be processed from then on as consistent with the Money Bills and Related Matters Act. I though it is important for members to be appraised,' he said.
The parliamentary rules set out the process to be followed in passing the Appropriation Bill.
'The Assembly must first decide on the separate votes in the schedule to an appropriation Bill (in the case of a main appropriation Bill, when the debate on supplementary amounts has been concluded) and thereafter on the schedule,' reads rule 328.
Maimane said he was really committed to making sure that the Appropriation Bill is passed so that it can be sent to the National Council of Provinces for concurrence.
'We have to make sure that the bill from that point on can then proceed as it is. I thought I have to appraise members on the question we have to be engaged with as we go forward,' he added.
Maimane said he would share the legal opinion when it was written after DA MP Kingsley's Hope Wakelin asked whether he was going to seek or has sought the legal opinion.
'I have sought one and that was the advice that I was given. Hopefully once its all written up I will send it,' said Maimane when Wakelin asked to be given the copy of the legal opinion.
He also said he would send a notification to MPs on the activities of the committee to finalise the processing of the Appropriation Bill.
The turn of events come against the backdrop of the second biggest party in the GNU, the DA, having lived up to its promise to vote against the Budget of the department led by 'compromised ministers and deputy minister'.
This after President Cyril Ramaphosa fired former deputy minister Andrew Whitfield after he undertook a trip to the US without authorisation.
On Saturday, DA leader John Steenhuisen said his party will vote against upcoming departmental Budget votes for the departments headed by Human Settlements Minister Thembi Simelane, Higher Education Minister Nobuhle Nkabane, and other 'corruption-accused ANC Ministers'.
He said they will keep voting against those departmental votes until those ministers were removed.
'In this way, the DA will strike the appropriate balance by allowing the broader GNU Budget process to proceed to ensure the stability of the country, while forcing the ANC to act against specific Ministers.
'If the ANC wants our support for those departmental budgets, they must replace the incumbent Ministers with alternatives that meet the very standard the President has set for himself through Whitfield's axing,' Steenhuisen said.
The DA has already rejected the budget for the Department of Human Settlements in the National Assembly and the Higher Education Department's budget in the National Council of Provinces.
The Higher Education Department's budget will be debated in the National Assembly on Thursday afternoon.
mayibongwe.maqhina@inl.co.za
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