ANC says DA cannot be trusted
The ANC in the Western Cape is perturbed by the absurd double standard DA saying one thing and doing the opposite.
DA provincial leader and also Leader of Government Business in the Western Cape Provincial Legislature Theuns Botha has given an undertaking that his party will not advance with its plan to hijack committees of the legislature by proportionally increasing the DA's influence in it. But he said the recent decision bulldozed through the Rules Committee to do just that would be stayed for further negotiations on the matter.
Botha was quoted in Rapport (6 March 2011) that the decision will not be forced through the legislature. He stated it will be held in abeyance. It will stand over for at least a week and talks with the ANC opposition will be reopened.
DA national leader, Premier Helen Zille, is also quoted as supporting Botha's initiatives. Clearly they sensed the wrong in this action to encroach on the ANC's democratic space and tried to avoid the damage. But the ANC has come to know the real DA that cannot be trusted.
"Just two days later the DA's Chief Whip Alta Rossouw today (Tuesday morning) negated on her leaders' decision and stated that the DA will immediately be going ahead regardless. It is clear that the DA is in disarray and works in silos where one group does not know what the other thinks or decides. Or else it is a deliberate tactic by the DA as a whole to use decoys and play politicking games. All the Western Cape needs is entrenching good, clean and transparent governance.
"However, cutting the ANC representation on most committees by half is a serious impediment in exercising the Constitutional oversight role, to give constructive inputs and interrogate issues of importance by the ANC Official Opposition. At the same time the DA increases its hold radically to 75% in relation to ANC representation. Where the DA had the majority of 4 to 2 ANC members, it is now changed it to 3 to 1 ANC representative in most committees.
"The DA tries to make rubbish of ANC concerns by saying it does not affect MPL's to attend committee meetings, but it does have a profound pressure on the voting power of the ANC to have a say on matters. The ANC used to have at least two votes per committee, and now it is cut by 50%!
"It is clearer now that the DA in this house is hell-bent on strangling our democracy and act repressively on the ANC's duly elected representatives. It has little regard for our Constitution and the Rule of Law. This tyrannical tendency has been witnessed too often here and has become a trade mark of the DA rule in this province," says ANC Chief Whip Pierre Uys.
Statement issued by Pierre Uys, MPL, ANC Chief Whip in the Provincial Legislature, March 8 2011
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