Speaker is selectively targeting Opposition MPs

11 December 2014

On 09 December 2014, I received notice from Speaker Baleka Mbete stating that the Powers and Privileges Committee will be investigating Democratic Alliance Parliamentary Leader Mmusi Maimane MP and DA Deputy Chief Whip Mike Waters MP for their conduct in the National Assembly on 13 November 2014.

This is a targeted attempt at silencing the DA and other opposition parties. We have asked the hard and necessary questions of the Speaker, the President and the Executive and have called for a consistent application of the rules. Unfortunately the rules are still not being applied equally, and now, yet again, the Powers and Privileges Committee is being used to settle political scores. 

To my knowledge, only one ANC MP is being investigated by the Committee, while serious offenders like Speaker Baleka Mbete, Deputy Speaker Lechesa Tsenoli, Minister of Small Business Development Lindiwe Zulu, among others, have gone scot-free. 

Once the Committee begins its deliberations, we will insist that key witnesses and offenders, like Ms Mbete, are called before the Committee.

President Jacob Zuma has been absent from the National Assembly, in direct and serious violation of the Rules of Parliament and the Constitution, yet the Committee would rather haul opposition MPs before an investigation, on frivolous grounds.

As we have seen, with the Nkandla Ad Hoc Committee and a previous Powers and Privileges Committee investigation of opposition Members of Parliament, we expect that the ANC will use its majority to bulldoze through a predetermined outcome at the behest of Luthuli House.

It is clear that the ANC will do all it can to silence dissent, while undermining Parliament and its functions.

Statement issued by John Steenhuisen MP, DA Chief Whip, December 11 2014

Click here to sign up to receive our free daily headline email newsletter