President Zuma needs to come out of hiding and account

28 October 2014

Today I have requested an urgent meeting with President Jacob Zuma.

As Leader of the Opposition, I can no longer abide President Zuma's failure to deal with, or provide any leadership on the growing number of issues of serious concern in South Africa.

Most pressing among these issues is the President's own refusal to appear before Parliament to answer a full session of oral questions, as he has failed to do for a full 12 months. The rules of Parliament require that he appears at least 4 times per year, which rules he has now broken.

In doing so, South Africa is left with the impression that the President disregards the role of Parliament, and disregards the people of South Africa who elected Parliament.

I have written to Deputy President Cyril Ramaphosa to request his guarantee that the President will appear before the House before the end of 2014, yet to date the Deputy President has not replied.

Similarly, queries to the ANC representatives on the Programming Committee at Parliament lead to nothing more than attempts at stringing us along with no definitive date forthcoming, despite two weeks of attempts to be provided with a date.

I must also discuss with the President his alarming and deplorable utterance that corruption is a "Western paradigm" with no victims. I have written to President Zuma for him to clarify these, yet he failed to reply within the reasonable timeframe I set out of 14 days.

According to the Special Investigating Unit, between R25 billion and R30 billion, and growing, is lost by the State due corrupt activities. This is taxpayers' money, which could have gone to better resourcing schools, hospitals and fighting the cancer of corruption. So President Zuma's claim that corruption is a victimless crime is in contrast with the reality.

While the President refuses to come to Parliament, and after I extend written communications to him, he maintains his silence, and hides from answering to the people of South Africa.

Our Parliamentary democracy is fast falling into a chasm of defending Jacob Zuma at all costs, including undermining Parliament and our Constitution.

I call for this urgent meeting so that I may hear from President Zuma why he continues to avoid accounting to the people of South Africa, and to establish a timeline for him to appear before Parliament.

Statement issued by Mmusi Maimane MP, DA parliamentary leader, October 28 2014

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