A legal opinion from parliament’s senior legal adviser on voting procedures for the Appropriations Bill could upset the DA’s voting plans on the budget.
The DA has decided to vote against the budget votes of human settlements and higher education and of other ministers linked to corruption but the import of the legal opinion is that if the National Assembly does not vote in favour of any single individual budget vote, then the entire Appropriation Bill cannot be passed.
The Appropriations Bill comprises the allocations to all government departments and is due to be voted on on July 23 after all the individual budget vote debates for each department have been concluded. Each department’s vote will be voted on separately during this process.
Following the dismissal of deputy trade, industry and competition minister Andrew Whitfield by President Cyril Ramaphosa, DA leader John Steenhuisen gave Ramaphosa 48 hours to dismiss ministers who had allegedly broken the law such as human settlements minister Thembi Simelane for her alleged involvement in the VBS Mutual Bank scandal and higher education and training minister Nobuhle Nkabane for lying to parliament.
When Ramaphosa failed to comply with Steenhuisen’s demands, the DA said it would vote against the budget votes of ministers implicated in corruption or wrongdoing, namely Simelane, Nkabane, and water and sanitation deputy minister David Mahlobo.
However, if such voting resulted in the Appropriations Bill in its entirety not being adopted, it would be equivalent to not passing the budget and would probably lead to the DA being kicked out of the government of national unity (GNU). It is not clear whether opposition parties will vote in favour of these budget votes.
In response to a question by Business Day on Wednesday on the issue, Steenhuisen said: “We will vote against the individual votes as per the press conference announcement until such time as the compromised minister/s are removed.”
Senior parliamentary legal adviser Frank Jenkins sent a legal opinion to standing committee on appropriations chairperson Mmusi Maimane on the procedure for the National Assembly to pass the Appropriations Bill.
“The question is whether the National Assembly can pass the Appropriation Bill if the individual votes set out in the schedule 1 to the bill have not been passed. Schedule 1 contains 42 votes,” Jenkins said in his memorandum.
He said the rules of the National Assembly provided for the approval of individual votes and then the schedule.
“The Public Finance Management Act (PFMA) requires that parliament first approves the votes in schedule 1 to the Appropriation Bill and then consider schedule 1 for approval. NA rule 328 gives effect to this provision by requiring the same procedure.
“It follows that schedule 1 to the Appropriation Bill may only be considered by the National Assembly once the individual votes have been decided. A decision is this context is a majority of members of the Assembly must be present and the decision must be carried by a majority of votes cast.”
This means that failure to pass a department’s budget vote means the Appropriations Bill in its entirety cannot be passed.
In his press statement late last month Steenhuisen said the DA had decided to vote against upcoming departmental budget votes for the departments headed by Simelane, Nkabane and other corruption-accused ANC ministers.
“We will keep voting against those departmental votes until those ministers are 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.
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