Pretoria - Government departments’ budget votes schedule will resume in Parliament on Tuesday.
In a statement on Sunday, Parliament said the Budget Vote debate programme will resume with six debates on budget votes in separate mini plenary sittings of the National Assembly and a policy debate on higher education in the National Council of Provinces.
“The six votes scheduled for consideration in the National Assembly mini plenary sittings are Trade and Industry, Tourism, National Treasury, Transport, Police and the Independent Police Investigative Directorate, Arts and Culture,” said Parliament.
On Wednesday and Thursday, six debates on budget votes per day are scheduled for mini-plenary sittings of the Assembly.
In addition, the National Council of Provinces is scheduled to hold policy debates on Tourism, Police and the Independent Police Investigative Directorate on Wednesday and Thursday.
The budget vote programme will wrap up for the week on Friday, when three separate mini plenary sittings of the National Assembly are scheduled to debate Vote 40 (Sport and Recreation South Africa), Vote 36 (Water and Sanitation) and Vote 3 (Communications).
Week one of Parliament’s budget vote programme drew to a close with debates on the budgets of the Department of Rural Development and Land Reform, as well as the Department of Energy on Friday.
Portfolio Committee meetings
Other than the budget votes a range of other issues are up for consideration at the 37 committee meetings and one public hearing scheduled so far including a joint meeting on Tuesday of the Portfolio Committee on Basic Education and the Portfolio Committee on Transport.
The Committee will brief on progress with the Learner Transport Policy, implementation of the policy and the current state of learner transport provisioning.
The Portfolio Committee on Water and Sanitation meeting on Tuesday will be briefed by the Department of Water and Sanitation on the bucket eradication programme.
The Standing Committee on Appropriations will on Tuesday hear comment from the Human Sciences Research Council on the 2017 Appropriation Bill. The committee is also holding public hearings on the bill on Wednesday in Khayelitsha, Cape Town.
On Wednesday, the Portfolio Committee on Trade and Industry will hear inputs from National Treasury on proposed policy and measures to be legislated for debt relief, while the Portfolio Committee on Mineral Resources will on Wednesday be briefed by the department on barriers to entry for junior and emergent miners and what can be done.
The Portfolio Committee on Health will be briefed on Wednesday on the department’s strategies to deal with obesity and non-communicable diseases
A joint meeting of the Standing Committee on Finance and the Portfolio Committee on Trade and Industry will on Wednesday, receive responses from National Treasury and the Department of Trade and Industry on submissions received during recent hearings on transformation in the financial sector.
On Thursday, the Secretary to Parliament is scheduled to brief the Joint Standing Committee on Financial Management of Parliament about Parliament’s performance from the fourth quarter of the 2016/2017 financial year. – SAnews.gov.za
