Administration of the Gauteng Provincial Legislature

What is the role of the staff of GPL in relation to MPLs ?

The core of the work of the GPL is done in House Sittings and through other parliamentary processes of the GPL. But behind that work are lots of people that are employed by the GPL as the institution’s administrative workforce.

The daily work of the staff of the GPL is to provide a support service to Members of the Provincial Legislature (MPLs) – helping them perform their duties. These people form the backbone of the institution and have a vital role to play, particularly in the ‘law-making’ objective of the GPL.

According to existing policies of the GPL, staff cannot be biased to neither MPLs nor political parties represented in the house. This means that affiliation to a certain political party should not influence a member of staff to show favouritism towards their preferred party when performing their daily work. such policies also ban staff from interfering in the work of MPLs of their preferred parties.

Each staff member has a specific role within the institution, and is accountable to a line manager. MPLs do not have a managerial role in relation to staff members.

Further, such policies require all staff of the GPL to have equal respect for political parties represented in the House. All information that the staff of the GPL avail to the public of Gauteng for consumption is NOT biased to any political party.

What do MPLs do?

Other than debating Bills during the Sitting of the House, the basic work of Parliamentary Members is to articulate interests and issues of communities, to which they have been assigned by their political parties in the Legislature.

Parliamentary Members are also given a budget to run offices in communities, where they can meet with the people that voted them into parliament and discuss issues that affect communities.

It is at such offices that the People of Gauteng can engage with Parliamentary Members on a personal level, and express their views on matters that are being discussed at the Legislature.