National Assembly Speaker Nosiviwe Mapisa-Nqakula will indicate next week when the tabling of this year’s Medium-Term Budget Policy Statement (MTBPS) by Finance Minister Enoch Godongwana will be scheduled.
This comes after Mapisa-Nqakula received a letter from Godongwana proposing October 25 for the tabling.
This emerged when the National Assembly programme committee met on Thursday morning to consider the business of the national legislature.
“I thought before I respond to the letter from the minister of finance, that I should bring it to the programme committee so that it does not coincide with other matters which we are dealing with,” she told the committee.
She said, however, that she was open to the chief whips forum coming back with a proposal next week.
National Assembly Secretary Masibulele Xaso said the date proposed by Godongwana clashed with the Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU) session scheduled for October 23 to 27.
ANC chief whip Pemmy Majodina said the chief whips might not have time to discuss the matter and asked Mapisa-Nqakula to look into it.
“Next week, we might be overtaken by events. This city hall we depend on might not be available at that time,” she said.
Majodina asked Mapisa-Nqakula to finalise the IPU dates and the availability of people attending the IPU session without referring it to the chief whips forum.
“We must be mindful the city is not in our control. The sooner we block it, the better.”
In response, Mapisa-Nqakula said: “I will give a report next week when we meet here.”
The MTBPS day is one of the important dates in Parliament as it gives ministers of finance an opportunity to set out policy goals and priorities as well as forecast macro-economic trajectory and project the fiscal framework by outlining spending and revenue estimates for the next three years.
The proposed date for the MTBPS requires concurrence from the National Assembly.
Cape Times