Fruitless expenditure on a closed sitting yet another reason why NWPL Speaker must take a hike

5 February 2021

Note to Editors: Find attached soundbites in English and Afrikaans by DA North West Member of the Standing Committee on Oversight of the North West Provincial Legislature (NWPL), Jacqueline Theologo. 

The Democratic Alliance (DA) in North West is dismayed to learn that the Legislature sitting of 28 January 2021, which was called for the purpose of appointing a Chairperson of Committees (Chair of Chairs), was closed to the public.

At a cost of thousands of Rands, this is not acceptable and the DA will request the recording to be made public.

To adapt to the new normal, with the Lockdown Regulations, the Legislature adopted 'Virtual Rules' which still provide for the constitutional obligation of public participation to be met, hence the Legislature publishes its sittings on its Facebook page and members of the media are permitted to view the proceedings.  On that day, nothing was published.

What is of particular interest, is that the sitting was declared a closed sitting, yet costs for a public sitting were carried, which implies that these costs were nothing but a fruitless expenditure which must be investigated.

The fact that the service provider, Glory Computers, was part of the sitting and recorded the session on that day, but failed to stream it on the Facebook page, raises eyebrows and at a rate of R25 000 per recording session, should be investigated.

During public sittings, to cater for the deaf community, services of a sign language interpreter are always procured.  In that closed sitting, the sign language interpreters, Sibo, were also rendering their service to an unavailable audience at a rate of R14 000 per sitting.

We will be writing to the Speaker requesting her to supply reasons why and who declared the sitting as closed and to compel her to release the recordings of that sitting to be viewed by the public.

We will also be requesting the Standing Committee on Public Accounts (SCOPA) to summon the Speaker, Sussana Dantjie and the Secretary, Oageng Mosiane, to account for this fruitless expenditure and the violation of the Constitution by preventing the public from participating in proceedings of the Legislature.

The unilateral decision to trample on citizen’s rights without any justification, along with other reasons outlined in our previous media statements, confirms why the DA are more resolute than ever that her time has expired.

The Motion of No Confidence against the Speaker and Deputy Speaker tabled by the DA yesterday, is urgent and must be scheduled for the next sitting.

Issued by Jacqueline Theologo, DA North West Member of Standing Committee on Oversight of the NWPL, 5 February 2021