COLUMNIST MAX DU PREEEZ'S IGNORANCE 

Max Du Preez's tirade ("ANC hides behind worst party whip", Cape Times ,28 May 2013) reminded me of one of Plato's maxims, "an empty vessel makes the loudest noise" (see here). Here's a columnist who offers a public commentary on the functioning of parliament, yet he exhibits so much ignorance regarding its rules, practices and conventions. 

Du Preez' piece represents all that is wrong with the state of our punditocracy: always eager to opine on anything under the sun, regardless of whether it is knowledgeable on the subject or not. The punditocracy's ever-expanding pretension to expertise in areas its members could not be fairly expected to master, says Eric Alterman in his book Sounds and Fury: The Making of the Punditocracy, is responsible for the increasing misinformation and misinterpretation in political discourse. 

One would expect a veteran pundit like Du Preez to at least conduct a rudimentary research on the topic he opines on, rather than submit a cut and paste of DA's media statements on the topic.  The problem with columns, says Alterman, is that they force pundits down the same hole into which reporters historically fall: they become prisoners of their sources.

Alterman says that shallow pieces, and I'm certain Du Preez's is one of them, are illustrative of pundits' submission to temptations of laziness, self-satisfaction, and plain-old burnout. "Only a negligible number of pundits manage to pull off the simultaneous feats of intellect, reporting, and integrity required to write an honest analytical column about the panoply of issues...," argues Alterman. 

Had Du Preez bothered to conduct a quick research on the functioning of Parliament, he would have found some of his assertions, including his questioning of the President's attendance of Parliament, silly. 

The fact is that Parliament strictly operates under the guidance of rules in line with the Constitution. The rules of the National Assembly (NA) and the Constitution clearly prescribe circumstances under which the President may be present in Parliament. In terms of section 87 of the Constitution the President is not a Member of Parliament, and therefore cannot attend parliamentary debates, including the recent snap debate on the controversial Waterkloof landing.

Section 103 of the NA rules, under which the snap debate was held, clearly outlines the nature and form the debate ought to take - and the presence of the President is not one of the requirements. Section 103 (4) of the assembly rules make a provision for a minister whose portfolio is relevant to the topic of the debate to participate in the debate.

For this reason, both the ministers of justice & constitutional development and home affairs, whose departments fall under the government cluster that investigated the Waterkloof landing, not only participated in the debate but also accounted on the incident through responses to MPs questions.

This fact makes a complete mockery of Du Preez's silly contention that the ANC is contemptuous of Parliament. The constitution and parliamentary rules provides a wide range of mechanisms for the institution to hold the President to account, including MPs' questions to the President for oral reply. This is the alternative the DA should have opted for if it really wanted the President to be present and respond to questions on the matter. 

The DA itself, which initiated the call for president's presence in Parliament for the debate, knows the call was nothing but a cynical propaganda exercise which has no basis in terms of the rules and the constitution. It is amazing that that a veteran pundit and columnist like Du Preez would, not only easily fall for such political propaganda hook, line and sinker, but go further to rehash it in his column. Is Du Preez that type of pundit Alterman warned us about, a prisoner of his (DA) sources? Du Preez would do his credibility as a columnist great service if he could, just for once, try to think out of the DA box. 

Du Preez's other cut-and-paste claim is that the report of the investigation into the Waterkloof landing "was withheld from MPs" but released to the "media" (in fact, the report was released to the public, which government is accountable to) to disadvantage the opposition. This is the same laughable posturing advanced by the DA few days ago.

Had Du Preez checked the facts rather than merely rely on the DA website for this piece, he would know that it is the DA that insisted on the debate taking place before the report of investigation is formerly submitted to Parliament. The ANC's insistence two week ago that the debate be scheduled after the submission of the report to parliament in order to enlighten the debate was rejected outright by the DA, which accused us of attempting to delay the debate. Du Preez and DA's claim that the report was withheld from the opposition is arrantly absurd. 

Du Preez claims that in its response to the unauthorised Waterkloof landing, the government "hastily launched an investigation...and delivered a report with "little credibility". Those who had the opportunity to carefully read the detailed report, like Cape Argus reader Mike Longden-Thurgood, will find Du Preez's assertion highly incredulous and worthless. 

Says Longden-Thurgood in his letter published in Cape Argus (Guptagate report is competent and not a whitewash, 17 May 2013) after reading the full report on Politicsweb: 

"I find it to be a highly professional report. I congratulate whoever prepared it. If anyone wishes to believe it's a whitewash for President Jacob Zuma and some of his ministers, such opinions are quite worthless. I recommend that anyone who wishes to persist with these opinions get down to reading the full report. But, unfortunately, there are far too many people out there who will have no access to reading the report, unless a newspaper publishes it in full.

With the large amount of input data and information which had to be carefully assessed - but which isn't attached to the report - there's absolutely no way that anyone could have had the time to manipulate such a lot of information in the short time given for it to be produced to our government.

And I write as an individual most of whose working life has been involved with scientifically based technology, and for which I had to collect data, assess it, and write many technical reports for highly qualified professional colleagues. So I am able to sensibly judge the status of this report" 

I am certain that Longden-Thurgood's view of this report is shared by many who have read it. I doubt Du Preez had an opportunity to familiarise himself with the report, seeing that the DA website (his source of information) has not uploaded it. 

On the basis of these lazy and uninformed arguments advanced in his column, Du Preez arrives at a bizarre conclusion that the ANC Chief Whip has failed Parliament and must go. Are we supposed to take him seriously? 

It is inexcusable for a newspaper columnist to opine and make conclusions on a complex subject he knows little about. Could this be a sign of a columnist who has succumbed to temptation for "laziness, self-satisfaction, and plain-old burnout" - as described by Alterman? 

Moloto Mothapo is ANC Spokesperson in Parliament. This is the full version of the letter published in Cape Times, 31 May 2013

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