NCOP REVISITING EDEN DISTRICT TO REPORT BACK
ON TAKING PARLIAMENT TO THE PEOPLE

Permanent delegates to the National Council of Provinces (NCOP) will next week (18 to 20 April) revisit the Eden District to Report Back on progress made regarding undertakings taken during last year’s Taking Parliament to the People Programme.

The multidisciplinary delegation will visit projects in each of the seven municipalities in the district to assess developments and later report back at a public meeting to be held at venues across Eden District on Tuesday, 19 April at 17h00. Each group will comprise of NCOP delegates, Members of the Western Cape Parliament, Councillors from the local municipalities and other stakeholders.

The local municipalities to be visited are: Bitou, George, Hessequa, Kannaland, Knysna, Mossel Bay and Oudtshoorn.

The oversight visits will be conducted at different schools, hospitals, housing projects, and water purification facilities among others.

Knysna’s NCOP feedback will held at Khayalethu Hall at 5pm tonight, April 19 – see Knysna Schedule

Members of the media are invited to join the delegations on these oversight visits.

For media enquiries in the respective areas, please contact:

• George Municipality: Nolizwi Magwagwa – 083 313 1323
• Knysna Municipality: Manelisi Ntsodo – 083 985 7047
• Mossel Bay Municipality: Sakhile Mokoena – 081 705 2130
• Kannaland Municipality: Faith Kwaza – 081 3770686
• Hessequa Municipality: Themba Gubula – 081 402 3531
• Bitou Municipality: Malatswa Molepo – 081 512 7920
• Oudtshoorn Municipality: Sibongile Maputi – 081 052 6060

Background

The Taking Parliament to the People (TPTP) programme was established in 2002 for purposes of enhancing public participation. It evolved to provide an opportunity for public education and integrated oversight.

The TPTP is unique in the sense that it provides an opportunity for all of the membership of the NCOP, together with the leadership of national, provincial and local government spheres, to operate in one province attending to the most challenging issues that are identified through a consultative exercise involving political leaders and the people.

Given its character, the programme provides the delegates to the NCOP with an opportunity to collectively sharpen their understanding of the different provinces, and thus their interests, and to learn from the experiences, practices or innovation.

Over the years, the major weakness of the programme has been the nature of impact and follow-up activity. One of the contributing factors was how the programme is organised. To address this would require, among other things, the programme to be fully integrated within the overall business of the NCOP and for the strengthening of the monitoring and evaluation function. Towards this, a decision has been taken to review the form and content of the programme. This will go hand in hand with the process of the finalisation of Parliament’s Public Participation Model envisaged for implementation from the 2016/17 financial year.

In the meantime, the leadership of the NCOP has directed that a report-back exercise be undertaken on the first Taking Parliament to the People programme in the fifth Parliament held in the Western Cape in 2015. The exercise will be conducted from 18-21 April 2016.

The format of the report- back exercise would be similar to the one for the pre-visits conducted for the Western Cape programme from 3 to 7 March 2015.

The decision is that only the local municipalities in Eden District Municipality would be visited during this period. Follow-up exercise in respect of the issues that emanated from the visit to the City of Cape Town would be conducted through relevant committees before or after the report-back exercise in Eden District Municipality.

Further, the report-back exercise in the Eden District Municipality would be undertaken through multidisciplinary delegations given the diverse nature of issues that were picked up. Different municipalities will be visited to assess developments and to provide space for reporting back on the issues specific to each municipality. The delegations will thereafter converge in George for a joint feedback session. The draft programme provides detail of the exercise.