A day in the life of a South African Member of Parliament

From the regimented school-like programme to his phone being tracked, Rise Mzansi leader Songezo Zibi described what its like working as a Member of Parliament (MP) in South Africa.

In South Africa, Parliament holds the legislative power of the Republic, meaning that it is responsible for creating and passing laws.

The individuals who work in Parliament and are responsible for this legislative function are known as Members of Parliament (MPs).

Parliament is divided into two houses: the National Assembly, which deals with matters at the national level, and the National Council of Provinces, which ensures provincial concerns are taken into account.

The National Assembly contains 400 seats, while the National Council of Provinces has 90. 

Because South Africa uses a system of proportional representation, seats held by MPs reflect the outcome of the National and Provincial Elections.

For example, because the African National Congress received just over 40% of the vote, it was awarded 159 seats in the National Assembly.

While the legislative function is the primary task of Parliament, MPs also have several other responsibilities, which include overseeing government action and facilitating public involvement in the legislative process.

MPs conduct most of their work in committees, which allows them to debate their work in more detail, increase the amount of work that can be done, and enable MPs to develop expertise.

Committees, each headed by a chairperson, have the power to summon any person or entity to appear before them, give evidence, or produce documents.

The entire house may also meet on occasions when it needs to vote on a matter, such as a proposed departmental budget or the election of the President.

However, it is important to note that the work of MPs does not happen in isolation, as the public, which they represent, has a significant impact on the work they do.

MPs also don’t confine their work to the walls of Parliament and often venture to different parts of the country to conduct oversight visits.

Working as an MP in South Africa

Zibi, who is the chairperson of Parliament’s Standing Committee on Public Accounts, says that his day starts between four and five o’clock in the morning, when he gets up to prepare for the day.

While Parliament’s programme only starts at nine, he says it’s necessary to get up this early to prepare for meetings and allow enough time to navigate the Cape Town traffic.

He says that Parliament has a very regimented programme. “Nine to one is committee time. Two to whenever is plenary time,” he said.

“It’s like school. They even ring a bell. They ring a bell for break. They ring a bell for the end of the break, and when you need to start.”

Monday is constituency day, which is when MPs must be available to the public and report back to their constituents on what is happening in Parliament.

Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursday mornings are the days when Parliamentary sessions take place, with question time, when MPs have the chance to ask ministers questions, taking place on Thursday afternoons.

Friday, he says, is either committee day or constituency day.

Zibi explains that the most challenging part of working as an MP is finding the time to prepare for meetings properly.

At this point in the interview, the Scopa chairperson turned around and picked up a stack of A4-bound papers.

“This is one submission for the inquiry,” he said, referring to SCOPA’s upcoming inquiry into alleged corruption within the Road Accident Fund. “It’s 489 pages.”

“That’s just one, and 70% of the stuff in there isn’t useful, but you have to read through everything because, based on that, you have to ask for further documents.”

He says that he finds himself doing a lot more reading than he would like to do because the committee does not have all the skills it needs.

“I often need to focus more on analysing financial statements. For example, one of the things I noticed with the RAF is that the interest and investment income was over R700 million for a single year. So I expected a big cash point, but they only had R65 million,” Zibi says.

“And then you keep digging and realise that these guys are holding cash for most of the year and then only start paying claims between January and March at the end of the financial year. You must read the documents carefully.”

Zibi explains that this means going to bed at midnight every night and waking up early to make time to process this information.

“So by the time you get to the afternoon and people are falling asleep, people think like that’s the first meeting you’ve had. No. I’ve been up since like 4 or 5,” he explained.

“And suppose you are not speaking that afternoon. After 45 minutes, your body begins to shut down because you’re just sitting, listening to people often talking nonsense as they’ve decided to disrupt the proceedings.”

“And then people look at that and they say, ‘Yeah, these guys are lazy,’” he added.

However, being an MP is far more than just reading submissions, participating in meetings, and debating with fellow politicians.

Recent reports revealed that South Africa’s National Police Commissioner, Fannie Masemola, advised that Zibi increase his personal security following a threat assessment.

Zibi reported that people were photographing him meeting with a deputy minister as part of Scopa’s preparations for the RAF inquiry, days after he had met with a whistleblower.

“I think that my phone is also being tracked because when I went to Mthata yesterday for an oversight visit, there were people who turned up,” he said.

“We don’t know how they knew I was there in that moment because I wasn’t in any of the places I was supposed to provide oversight.”