The Price of Lost Oversight

President Cyril Ramaphosa’s question-and-answer session in Parliament on 14 May 2026 should have been a routine exercise in accountability. Instead, before the President began answering oral questions, the sitting was disrupted by members from certain parties who objected to the order of business and walked out. The issue is public cost. Taxpayers had paid for the President, MPs, presiding officers, staff, broadcasters, security, interpreters and technicians. When that machinery is obstructed, citizens buy less accountability.

The Constitutional Purpose of Order

Section 42(3) of the Constitution says the National Assembly represents the people, provides a national forum, passes legislation and scrutinises executive action. Section 55(2) requires mechanisms for executive accountability and oversight. Section 92(2) makes Cabinet collectively and individually accountable to Parliament, while section 92(3)(b) requires full and regular reports to Parliament. Presidential questions are therefore instruments through which the Constitution demands answers.

Section 57(1), which allows the Assembly to regulate its proceedings, must be read with accountability, transparency, public involvement and representative democracy. Joint business is regulated under section 45(1), while section 45(2) confirms privileges and immunities in joint proceedings. Sections 58 and 71 protect parliamentary speech, but that freedom remains subject to rules and orders.

What the Rules Prohibit

National Assembly Rule 69 prohibits grossly disorderly conduct, including deliberately creating serious disorder or disruption. Rules 70 to 73 empower the presiding officer to order a member to leave and involve the Serjeant-at-Arms and Parliamentary Protection Services. The Joint Rules prohibit serious disorder, obstruction of removals, repeated defiance of the Chair, refusal of rulings and conduct seriously detrimental to dignity, decorum or procedure. Joint Rule 15 bars interruptions of the President during the State of the Nation Address.

The Powers, Privileges and Immunities of Parliament and Provincial Legislatures Act 4 of 2004 defines a “disturbance” as conduct that interferes with, disrupts, or is likely to disrupt proceedings. Section 13 deals with contempt, including wilful refusal to obey a rule, order or resolution. Section 12(5) allows warnings, reprimands, apologies, withholding facilities, removal from positions, fines up to one month’s salary and allowances, or suspension for up to 30 days. The Financial Management of Parliament and Provincial Legislatures Act of 2009 also matters because avoidable expenditure caused by disorder raises waste.

The Cost Per Minute

No public invoice gives an exact cost for 14 May. But there is enough official data for a fair model. The January 2026 remuneration schedule sets an ordinary MP or NCOP permanent delegate’s package at R1 322,968 from 1 April 2025. Using 224 parliamentary working days and an eight-hour analytical day, that equals R12,30 per minute per member. For 400 National Assembly members, the remuneration floor is R4 921,76 per minute. For 490 members in a joint sitting, it is R6 029,15 per minute.

Then comes the institutional machinery. Parliament’s 2026/27 Annual Performance Plan allocates R1 053 231,000 to Programme 2: Legislation and Oversight. Spread across the same denominator, that equals R9 795,12 per minute. Apportioning that programme to the National Assembly and adding member remuneration produces a core National Assembly disruption rate of R12 464,73 per minute. For joint sittings, the equivalent is R15 824,27 per minute.

What That Means in Rands

On the National Assembly model, ten minutes lost costs R124 647,30. Fifteen minutes costs R186 970,95. Twenty minutes costs R249 294,60. Thirty minutes costs R373 941,90. Forty-five minutes costs R560 912,85. One hour costs R747 883,80. In a joint sitting, fifteen minutes costs R237 364,05, thirty minutes R474 728,10, forty-five minutes R712 092,15 and one hour R949 456,20. These figures exclude extra security, overtime, technical delays, generator inefficiencies, reputational harm and unanswered questions.

The opportunity cost is just as serious. Parliament recently reported 572 oral questions to the Executive in the National Assembly, with almost 90% of replies received, while 3 315 written questions produced only 49% of replies. Oral accountability is therefore more reliable than written accountability. Every disrupted minute may erase a supplementary question, reduce pressure on the Executive and deprive rule-abiding MPs of oversight time. A sitting can continue and still waste money if part of its constitutional output has been destroyed.

The Temporary Venue Problem

This cost is aggravated by Parliament’s operating conditions. After the 2022 fire, the Nieuwmeester Dome became a temporary venue. Public reporting indicates roughly R30 million for the Dome project, a second phase of about R25 million against a R31 million budget, an avoided external-venue cost of about R48 million per year and a Treasury adjustment of R15 827 million for upgrading and equipping the Dome. So, this all means that disruption now occurs in a very expensive temporary environment.

A Fair Conclusion to Taxpayers

In conclusion, South Africans are not only paying MPs to merely attend Parliament. We are paying for a constitutional system that must turn our public money into lawmaking, oversight and accountability. Parliament also budgets R3 million per portfolio committee, R627 815 million for political party allowances and R308 095 million for members’ facilities. When members obstruct proceedings, the taxpayer funds representation, support structures and institutional machinery, but receives diminished public value.

Now, the remedy is not to silence robust debate. It is to distinguish debate from obstruction. A democracy must tolerate sharp disagreement, but it need not subsidise preventable disorder without consequence. If one month’s salary is about R110 247,33, the maximum fine under section 12(5)(f) is smaller than the cost of nine minutes of an ordinary National Assembly disruption on the core model. That is weak deterrence. Parliament should enforce its rules, publish disruption cost estimates and ensure sanctions reflect the real public loss.

The constitutional issue and the economic issue are the same. Disorder reduces oversight, wastes scarce parliamentary time and makes citizens pay for accountability they do not receive. The man in the street may never see the invoice, but he pays it through a less efficient legislature every time that implodes into chaos.

For more on this topic read: The Cost of Presidential Indecision – https://fwdeklerk.org/the-cost-of-presidential-indecision2/