Issued by: African National Congress
15 November 1996
1. Members of the National Assembly, Senate and delegates from all nine Provincial legislatures and all major political parties in the country met in Cape Town on 11 - 13 November to prepare for the establishment of the National Council of Provinces.
2. The workshop was also attended by visitors form Namibia Germany, India, Canada, Belgium and the United States, all of whom made valuable contributions based on their own experience of intergovernmental relations and second chambers of parliament. The delegates thanked the international visitors for their presence. Special thanks were voted to the German government for its generous financial support for the conference and the National Democratic Institute for their invaluable contributions to the workshop.
3. The workshop was an historic occasion because for the first time, elected members of all nine provincial legislatures, representatives of all major parties, national MP's and Senators and representatives of local government sat together to plan the implementation of the new Constitution and chart a common course on the road to co-operative governance.
4. All delegates at the workshop committed themselves to co-operative governance as a cornerstone of our new constitutional democracy. There was agreement on the need to harmonise different interests and spheres of government so that all work together for the common good. The workshop affirmed that co-operative governance requires a shift from adversial and conflictual relations between tiers of government to a new culture of governance characterised by co-operation ad consensus building.
5. This common statement of the workshop is a significant achievement in the light of our conflictual constitutional transition. South Africa now faces a new era of consolidating democracy, healing past political wounds and making all levels of government work co-operatively.
6. The workshop recognised the NCOP as a key constitutional mechanism to achieve these objectives; The Workshop agreed that the NCOP has the following defining characteristics:
The NCOP is the second House of a bi-cameral national parliament.
The NCOP strengthens the representation of poorer and less populous regions so as to promote development ad growth in the less developed provinces without inhibiting development in those provinces with historically greater resources at their disposal;
The NCOP is designed to represent provinces both individually and collectively within the national legislative process;
The NCOP will promote a spirit of co-operation at all levels of government;
The NCOP has a role to play in distilling the national interest from a provincial point of view;
The NCOP will facilitate legislative co-operation between national and provincial governments in areas of common interest;
The NCOP will provide a forum for the articulation of local government concerns at the national level;
The NCOP is part of the system of intergovernmental relations. Its rules, procedures and structures must facilitate intergovernmental co-ordination and negotiation;
Debates will by ad large take place in the provincial legislatures, which are close to their constituents, rather than in the NCOP;
The NCOP will have a role to play in monitoring and overseeing structures of executive intergovernmental co-ordination;
While the NCOP is essentially representative of the provinces, political parties at the provincial level will be integrally involved in its work. Minority parties will participate fully in committees of the provincial legislatures and the NCOP, and in the process of formulating provincial mandates.
The NCOP will play a role in the process of formulating provincial fiscal allocations and reviewing departmental priorities and budgetary estimates at the legislative stage. It was agreed that these issues are complex and will require further discussion.
7. The workshop considered a number of options regarding a committee structure for the NCOP but did not finalize this matter. One proposal was a two track system to deal with issues of common concern on the one hand and issues of exclusive national jurisdiction on the other. The establishment of special committees to deal with matters such as constitutional amendments, rules and fiscal relations was also discussed.
8. It was agreed that the committees of the NCOP should be structured to facilitate provincial participation. It was also agreed that NCOP committees, at least on schedule 4 matters, would function as negotiating bodies to harmonise provincial perspectives with those of the national assembly.
9. It was agreed that the sittings, schedules, legislative programmes and time frames for the passage of legislation will need to be co-ordinated between parliament and the nine provincial legislatures. It was also agreed that provinces should be involved in the legislative process from the early stage of conceptualization.
10. The workshop decided that the process of developing provincial mandates for NCOP delegates would be a two stage process requiring initial negotiating mandates and then final voting mandates. Delegates agreed that initial negotiating mandates would need to be flexible in order to allow consensus to develop between the provinces themselves, and between the NCOP and the National Assembly.
11. The workshop decided to establish a number of technical task teams to finalise outstanding matters, including (a) the rules and procedures of the NCOP, (b) the legislative programme of the NCOP, (c) fiscal and financial matters and (d) administrative support and co-ordination. As all decisions (other than those regarding exclusively national matters) will be taken in the NCOP on the basis of mandates from the provincial legislatures, there is a need for full provincial participation in these task teams. The Committee which organised the workshop should continue to co-ordinate the work of the task teams.