THE ANC in Parliament says it would be premature to revisit the electoral system to make provision for the direct election of some members of Parliament.

The ruling party, which is conducting an assessment of its 264 constituency offices, has also defended its MPs from accusations that they are out of touch with the communities they serve.

ANC chief whip Mathole Motshekga said the party would not entertain the idea of changing the electoral system as suggested by a 2003 report by a commission headed by Frederick van Zyl Slabbert.

The commission suggested a hybrid electoral system where at least half of the 400 MPs would be directly elected by their constituencies in place of the current list system.

Motshekga said South Africa's democracy was still not mature enough to entertain the kind of system suggested by the commission.

"The Van Zyl Slabbert report does not take into account the fact that we are a young democracy; we have a largely illiterate population," he said.

The ANC plans to use the parliamentary recess to conduct a comprehensive assessment of all its constituency offices to determine if they respond to the needs of the communities they serve.

According to Motshekga, the exercise would also help ruling party MPs, who are accused of being out of touch with their constituencies, to better understand the communities they serve and respond appropriately to their grievances.

He said ANC MPs were not necessarily out of touch with their constituencies, but often found it difficult to answer questions that are of a local or provincial nature.

He said they were now creating one stop centres where councillors, members of provincial legislatures and MPs would share the same office.