Standing Committee on Public Accounts

From 1994 until 2024 the practice has been that Parliament elects an opposition party member as chairperson. African People's Convention's Themba Godi, who was the SCOPA chair for 15 years, in 2022 said about the party affiliation of the chair:

“Having an opposition member leading Scopa has obvious advantages. The chair is not immediately constrained by narrow party considerations, especially the instinct to defend or avoid embarrassing their own party’s minister. It also makes officials’ work more difficult in preparing for meetings, in the knowledge that the chair will not instinctively be inclined to cover up a bit for them. An opposition chair is immune from the internal party backlash and is readily available to communicate messages to the public via the media.”^[2]

In July 2024 the South African Parliament elected Songezi Zibi from Rise Mzansi, a member of the Government of National Unity (NGU) as chairperson. ActionSA, an opposition party that has not joined the GNU, criticised his election saying that the position has been "gifted to a member of the multi-party government/'GNU' which already commands a 70% majority in Parliament [which] serves to potentially neuter effective oversight over government expenditure and outcomes related performance. ... Strong government needs a counter balancing force in opposition that uses the considerable powers afforded to a SCOPA Chairperson to hold government to account."^[3]

Zibi responded:^[4] “I think people are mischaracterising the tradition ... The tradition is that the chair of Scopa is not from the majority party. [Rise Mzansi is] not even in the national Cabinet, so the conflict doesn’t arise.”

The membership of the committee is as follows:^[5][6]