DA CHIEF WHIP’S DISCRIMINATORY UTTARANCES AGAINST MINISTER MASUTHA
5 November 2015
The Office of the ANC chief whip is utterly shocked by the downright crude and discriminatory broadside by the DA chief whip John Steenhuisen against the minister of justice and correctional service, Adv Michael Masutha, during today’s sitting of the National Assembly.
During the voting on the budget report for the department of higher education and training, the minister rose on a point of order enquiring if the number of DA MPs present in the House was procedurally sufficient for the party to call for a vote. In terms of the rules, the party that calls for a decision through a vote must have a minimum of 5 MPs present in the House. The majority of DA MPs at the time had already left the House and there were only a handful of them remaining.
The minister asked the presiding officer to confirm if the number of DA MPs present were five as required by the rules since he could not do so himself because he is visually impaired. But this valid procedural enquiry was met with shocking crudeness by the chief whip of the DA, who mocked the minister’s visual challenge and openly stated it was to blame for the challenges allegedly facing his department.
The utterance by Steenhuisen is not only careless and outrageous but shockingly discriminatory. The statement explicitly suggests that minister Masutha, by merely being partially sighted, is inherently incompetent, unintelligent and not fit to lead the department. The DA chief whip’s disgraceful jibe illustrates the type of ignorance that reinforces disturbing and dangerous stereotypes against people living with disability.
The Constitution of our country is explicit that no person should be discriminated against on the basis of their age, sex, race, gender and disability among others. Steenhuisen’s remarks were not only insulting to the Minister, an experienced parliamentarian and a brilliant legal mind, but also to the many people living with disability.
The Office of the ANC Chief Whip will carefully consider his conduct, which we consider a serious human rights violation, in order to determine the appropriate action to take.
Statement issued by the Office of the ANC Chief Whip, 5 November 2015
