The number of MPs failing to submit their declarations of financial and other interests on time has more than doubled from 16 in 2016 to 42 this year.

This is according to senior ANC MPs Amos Masondo and Omie Singh‚ who are co-chairpersons of Parliament’s joint committee on ethics and members’ interests.

Masondo and Singh were addressing the media in Parliament during the release of the 2017 register of members' interests.

The register details the financial interests of the more 400 MPs serving in both houses of Parliament (the National Assembly and National Council of Provinces) and the kinds of gifts and other benefits they received outside their remuneration to manage conflicts of interests.

Singh said 42 MPs from the two houses of Parliament had failed to meet the September 2017 deadline for submitting their declarations.

"There we 42 members that failed to meet the deadline date of 30th September 2017 and the committee resolved that the failure to submit by the required deadline is a breach of the code and triggers the complaints procedure.

"Accordingly the implicated members will be given an opportunity to show why they should not be penalised for breaching the code after which the committee will resolve on whether to sanction a member or not‚" said Singh.

However‚ Masondo and Singh have refused to name and shame the delinquent MPs‚ saying doing so would be unfair on them because they are yet to explain their tardiness to the committee‚ although this was previously done by the ethics committee.

"We would rather not talk about names now‚ the reason is that there's now a process in place and that process is that all members would be afforded an opportunity to explain why they have declared late and that entire process will be dealt with at the level of the sub-committee of the joint ethics committee‚" he said.