Appropriation Bill faces uncertainty as legal concerns mount

THE fate of the Appropriation Bill hangs in the balance as the Standing Committee on Appropriations is saddled with a legal opinion stating how voting should take place if the bill is to be passed.

- MALIBONGWE MAQHINA

This came up when committee chairperson Mmusi Maimane briefed the parliamentarians about a legal opinion he received from the parliamentary legal services at the conclusion of the public hearing on the 2025 Eskom Debt Amendment Bill on Wednesday.

Maimane said their job as the committee was not to get involved necessarily with the politics of goings-on inside the Government of National Unity.

“All I sought to seek is a legal opinion, guiding, whether, when we do scheduling of votes, what happens in an event when some don’t pass and some do, given this was consultation on the Appropriations Bill,” he said.

Maimane also said the National Assembly table has advised that the Appropriations Bill has to be adopted in its entirety if it is going to pass.

“Therefore, it will mean that if it fails to pass in its entirety, it will have to return to this respective committee to then be processed from then on as consistent with the Money Bills and Related Matters Act. I thought it is important for members to be appraised,” he said.