National Assembly Approves New Oversight Committee Focused on the Presidency
Cape Town — 3 December 2025: The National Assembly has adopted amendments to its rules aimed at strengthening oversight of the executive, including the creation of a dedicated Committee on the Presidency.
The committee will, for the first time, provide Parliament with a formal mechanism to examine the Presidency’s operations and spending. The move follows several years of research and discussions on how to improve scrutiny of Vote 1, which allocates funding to the Presidency.
Work on the proposal began in the Sixth Parliament, when the Parliamentary Budget Office reviewed oversight practices for the office of the Head of State. Its findings confirmed that the Presidency is subject to the same accountability requirements as all government budget votes. In April 2023, the Rules Committee conducted an international study tour to assess how other parliaments oversee executive authority.
The Seventh Parliament revived the initiative in October 2024, when the Rules Committee agreed that a new committee was necessary and instructed its Subcommittee on the Review of Assembly Rules to develop the required amendments. After receiving the subcommittee’s report in November 2025, the Rules Committee recommended that the National Assembly adopt the new rules.
Under the approved structure, the Committee on the Presidency will include 11 members: four from the African National Congress (ANC), two from the Democratic Alliance (DA), one from the MK Party, one from the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF), and three members from smaller parties.
The National Assembly also approved changes to its question procedures. Oral question time will be extended by 30 minutes and will now allow for follow-up questions similar to interpellations, enabling members to seek more detailed responses from the executive.
In addition, the Assembly endorsed the composition of the Committee on Government Undertakings and Petitions, which is tasked with monitoring commitments made by ministers and handling public petitions. This committee will mirror the structure of the new Presidency committee, comprising 11 members with the same proportional party representation.
With the rule amendments now adopted, both committees can begin operating under the new framework.
