The bigger the words a politician uses and the more he/she quotes from learned texts, the louder our bullshit alarms should go off. And so it was with Moloto Mothapo's response to my column on the ANC's disrespect of parliament. Mothapo is the ANC's parliamentary spin doctor.
I wrote that the ANC showed its contempt of parliament last week when they released the Guptagate "investigation" report to the media outside parliament minutes after the debate started inside the house. Two ANC speakers referred to the report having been made "public". When opposition MP's rose on points of order because as far as they knew this was not the case, the Speaker responded that the report would be given to MPs once it had been tabled in parliament.
Mothapo rambles on about the rules of parliament and blames the DA for not waiting for the report to be tabled in parliament. He does not even attempt to address my criticism that opposition MPs were deliberately brought under the impression that the report had not been released by the time they started debating it. I was watching the debate live on television. Half way through the debate I read the government report on Guptagate online. As a member of the public I knew more about a matter before parliament than the elected representatives inside parliament debating it.
No reasonable person could possibly come to any other conclusion than that this was a cynical, disrespectful move aimed at denying MPs solid information about the scandal (like the role names-dropping had played and references to the wishes of "Number One") during the special debate on the issue.
If the report could be available online while the debate was going on, there surely can't be any reason why it couldn't have been given to parliamentarians a few minutes earlier.
Allow me to whisper in Mr Mothapo's ear: several members of the ANC caucus thanked me personally for raising the issue of ANC Chief Whip Mathole Motshekga's incompetence and disregard for the important role parliament should play.
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