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this chapter) sought to streamline policymaking processes across all sectors, with theeffect of centralising decision-making within an expanding Presidency. This was insharp contrast to the multiplicity of voices mentioned earlier as having played a keyrole in the immediate aftermath of apartheid.All the while, the Party was growing gradually distant from the consolidated centreof power in the Union Buildings, the site of the Presidency. One of the maininstitutional links between the African National Congress and the foreignpolicymaking process remained the Parliamentary Portfolio Committee on foreignaffairs, as well as those committees that deal with cognate issues, such as trade anddefense. Owing to the ANC’s sizeable parliamentary majority, however, along withstrict party discipline and a lack of resources, the level of oversight provided bythese committees is negligible. Even ANC MPs have lamented the limited extent towhich they have influence over the foreign policy process. 252 Indeed, the ANC’shead of International Relations for the period under consideration, Ms. MaviviMyakayaka-Manzini, appeared to have very little to do with the intricate andcentralised policymaking machinery during a July 2007 interview. 253 Under Mbeki,there appeared also to be a fine dividing line between the ANC Executive (or NECand National Working Committee members, to be discussed in greater detail inChapter 5), and the rank and file of the ANC parliamentary caucus. Calland notesthat “(t)here are…serious limitations on the power of the caucus, many of whichreflect the same political constraints [as experienced by MPs more generally]”. 254The following overarching substantive priorities were confirmed by Cabinet, andagain in the President’s 2007 State of the Nation address, as guidelines for SouthAfrica’s foreign policy: 2551. Consolidation of the African Agendain the executive. This condition lapsed at the close of the first democratic Parliament in1999. See Constitution of the Republic of South Africa Act 200 of 1993. Accessed at:http://www.info.gov.za/documents/constitution/93cons.htm on 24 June, 2011.252 Van Nieuwkerk, “South Africa and African Crises”, 98.253 Interview with Mavivi Myakayaka-Manzini, July 2007.254 Calland, Anatomy of South Africa, 117.255 Department of Foreign Affairs, 2007. “Update of the DFA Strategic Plan 2007-10”,accessed online at: http://www.dfa.gov.za/department/stratplan06/index.htm on 22November 2010.119