The Joint Standing Committee on the Financial Management of Parliament is to undertake a study tour to France and Belgium. This is intended to learn how to ‘engage in the budget process and become instrumental in budget scrutiny.’
Francophone countries have been selected as they are held to have extensive expertise in the scrutiny of budgets. Francophone countries had a different tradition from that of the Anglophone systems; South Africa’s parliamentary system emerged from that latter.
A presentation in Parliament on the matter remarked: ‘The Francophone Parliament implements clear budget reforms to meet political challenges and to facilitate political debates as well as the role of Parliament in the budgeting process – The Francophone Parliament has more influence over the appropriation of budget.’
The study tour would also look at France’s experience in rehabilitating Notre Dame Cathedral, which had been extensively damaged in a fire in 2019. France’s legislature had passed an act to coordinate the funding of the repair work.
It is believed that this could be a model for reconstructing the South African Parliament, which suffered damage from a fire in early 2022.