10 MPs who work for their R1 million salaries
The hardest working member of parliament is Mncedisi Filtane from the Eastern Cape‚ representing the United Democratic Movement. Trade and Industry is the committee that has the most dedicated MPs‚ based on their attendance records.
This is according to research published by Africa Check‚ which based its top ten list on the number of committees attended by MPs in 2015.
TOP TWO
The UDM’s Filtane attended the most committee meetings last year – a total of 70. His focus is Public Works but he also attends to issues relating to agriculture‚ rural development and land reform‚ and sport.
He may need to work hard to keep this spot. According to the independent People’s Assembly website‚ his attendance record has slipped a bit so far this year: He has attended 27 meetings out of 47 in 2016‚ bringing his attendance record down to 57% from 62% in 2015.
Second on the list is Nicolaas Janse van Rensburg Koornhof of the African National Congress‚ who attended 68 meetings.
He sits on the Trade and Industry committee‚ which had four people in the top 10 – the most of all the committees.
Koornhof has been a Member of Parliament since 1987. He was a member of the Western Cape provincial government as a Democratic Alliance member and served as an MP for COPE‚ before appearing on the ANC list of national parliamentary candidates from 2014.
His attendance record for 2016 is stellar so far – at 91%. The People’s Assembly notes he has attended 30 meetings out of 33.
POSITIONS 3-10
The next seven MPs on the list are all from the ANC‚ with a MP representing the DA taking up 10th place.
By attending 60 meetings apiece‚ Loyiso Mpumlwana from international relations and Bongani Bongo from justice and correctional services share equal status.
Joanmariae Fubbs‚ the ANC chairperson of the trade and industry committee‚ attended 58 meetings.
Leonard Leonard Ramatlakane from the police committee tied with Mziwamadoda Kalako‚ who moved from communications to trade and industry in May last year. They each attended 56 committee meetings.
Yunus Karrim from finance attended 53 and Adrian Williams from trade and industry‚ both ANC‚ attended 52.
Dean McPherson from the DA‚ who sits on the trade and industry committee‚ attended 50 committee meetings to round out the top 10.
OVERVIEW
Africa Check used attendance records data collected and made publicly available by the Parliamentary Monitoring Group‚ an NGO‚ to find the “hardest-working MPs” based on how many committee meetings they attended in 2015.
MPs’ work is divided into parliamentary sessions and constituency periods.
Parliamentary Monitoring Group data shows 1‚254 committee meetings were held in 2015.
Committees are described as the “engine room” of parliament because these are where much of the law-making and oversight work is done.
An analysis by Africa Check of the information in the Composite Parliamentary Programme 2015 shows that the portion of days allocated for constituency work on the programme is close to 40% of the working year.
Constituency periods are set aside for MPs to be available to the people they represent‚ reporting back on what is happening in parliament.
