MPs' travels probed
2003-03-10 20:08
Cape Town - Members of a parliamentary task team, formed to set up a policy to curb unwarranted international travel by MPs, have asked researchers to examine the extent to which parliament's presiding officers enjoy overseas and local trips.
This follows a comment by the National Assembly's Deputy Speaker Baleka Mbete last week to parliament's rules committee that MPs were developing a "real appetite" for international travel.
"This appetite is very little when it comes to (Africa). It is much more when it comes to Europe and the United States," she said.
Parliament's authorities have commissioned initial research into the travel policies of other parliaments and set up a multiparty task team, headed by the deputy chair of committees Farouk Cassim (IFP), to formulate an official policy for South Africa.
MPs can attend conferences abroad and parliamentary committees can arrange overseas study tours to learn from approaches and experiences in other parliaments and oversight institutions.
However, African National Congress MP Peter Hendrickse said at the group's first meeting on Monday the study should be extended to include trips by the presiding officers.
The research should examine how much time they had been away from parliament over the past year.
He added that an impression had, wrongly, been created that most committee trips were "junkets" and arranged solely for MPs' pleasure.
The Inkatha Freedom Party's Sybil Seaton agreed, suggesting researchers also probe the cost to parliament of trips by the presiding officers.
She also suggested it was unfair to expect MPs to travel economy class for flights of more than eight hours, particularly when they were scheduled to attend meetings soon after their arrival.
Cassim said at this early stage the task team was merely "collecting viewpoints" from members, with a view to drafting a document to be tabled before the rules committee.
The task team wanted to set up a policy that clearly spelt out the procedure and criteria to be followed for foreign or local study tours, he said.
- SAPA