Proposal to limit MPs' time in parliament

ANC is going to propose that members of parliament should spend more time with voters than being in parliament from this year.

ANC chief whip Stone Sizani said they were going to draft a time table that would make members to come to parliament only when it was necessary.

"From this year, we want to see a situation where members are not in parliament for more than three months."

The MPs time table sees them being in parliament every quarter sitting in committees and they also come for the sittings in the National Assembly.

Sizani wants a situation where they would be in parliament three months in and three months doing constituency work.

In this way, he said members would interact more with communities, tell them about what was happening in parliament and resolve their problems.

Currently MPs are in parliament every year between February and March. They then break for Easter holidays and come back in May for budgets vote before breaking for winter recess end of June to July.

When they come back after July they break for two weeks in September and they are there until they close for Christmas break mid November.

What Sizani is proposing will be discussed at chief whips forum where other political parties represented in parliament sit. It will then have to get the approval of programmes committee.

He further said he gets angry when ANC MPs fail to come to parliament sittings without providing valid reasons.

He said sometimes ANC MPs do not form a quorum and he had reported them to ANC secretary general Gwede Mantashe.

"They get fined some amount and they never pay.

"The person who hires and fires them is the ANC not me," he said.