Parliament rejects electronic ‘cattle’ tags for MPs
Parliament will start using a biometric attendance system in the next term, when its members return from the constituency period.
Parliament had originally proposed a combination of two technologies in 2013 – radio frequency identification (RFID) and biometrics (fingerprint) – to monitor the attendance of Members of Parliament at sittings of the houses of parliament and committee meetings.
However, then DA chief whip, “Watty” Watson rejected the idea of electronic monitoring at the time, saying that the political party’s MPs were not sheep or cattle.
“We are senior citizens who have been elected to Parliament by the people of SA and for us to be treated like sheep or cattle being counted is unacceptable,” he said.
Members of parliament currently receive an annual salary of R990,000.
The fingerprint system will require Members of Parliament to register their attendance by thumbprint for sittings of the Houses of Parliament and in committee meetings.
The ANC welcomed Parliament’s announcement that it will finally activate its biometric attendance system to monitor the attendance of MPs.
“The chief whips of political parties, Parliament, and the general public will thus be able to track the attendance of Members of Parliament more effectively,” the ANC said in a statement.
The biometric monitoring system will replace the manual system that Parliament has used which required MPs to fill in attendance slips and then deposit them into boxes.
“There have been complaints amongst some parties regarding the inefficiencies of this system,” said the ANC.
It added that the new system will tighten the regulation of MP attendance of parliamentary meetings, and allow punitive measures to be implemented against those who abscond.
“The policy is in line with the Constitution, which directs Parliament to put an attendance policy in place to provide for circumstances under which Members of Parliament can lose their seats as a result of poor attendance.”
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