President Cyril Ramaphosa. (Lulama Zenzile/Die Burger/Gallo)
President Cyril Ramaphosa will return to parliament in three weeks’ time to respond to questions about the theft from his game farm that went unanswered in a raucous sitting the week before last.
At a meeting of the legislature’s programming committee, opposition chief whips objected that 29 September was not soon enough but Speaker Novisiwe Mapisa-Nqakula said Ramaphosa had sent a letter indicating that was the earliest opportunity he could avail himself. The president cited prior commitments.
He is due in the National Assembly for his next presidential question session on the given date, and will now complete his response to supplementary questions on Phala Phala at the same time, Mapisa-Nqakula told MPs.
The Economic Freedom Fighters accused her of allowing Ramaphosa to run circles around parliament.
“We are now being dictated to by a president who should account to parliament,” EFF chief whip Floyd Shivambu said.
“He does as he wishes. He comes to parliament and says he has been advised not to respond to certain questions… Where is the autonomy of parliament when the president just does as it wishes?’
Fellow EFF MP Hlengiwe Mkhaliphi asked the speaker to inform Ramaphosa that his response was unacceptable, asking: “Why are we running around in circles?”
The Democratic Alliance and the Inkatha Freedom Party said it was disappointing that an earlier date could not be agreed, given the public interest in the matter.
“It is obviously disappointing that the president is now only going to be lumping the additional question that he needs to answer, that he didn’t answer in the first session, alongside with the scheduled question session,” DA chief whip Siviwe Gwarube said.
The African Christian Democratic Party asked whether Ramaphosa would answer the questions the opposition believed he failed to answer, or only those the ANC believed he had not, and then only because the three hours allocated for the session had run out.
The crux of the disagreement between the opposition and the ruling party is whether saying he could not provide details on the case until investigations by law enforcement agencies had been completed, constitute a response to the question submitted by African Transformation Movement leader Vuyo Zungula.
The ANC has insisted it did, and that those he still has to respond to are some of the supplementary questions posed by MPs.
On Thursday, ANC chief whip Pemmy Majodina said the speaker was correct to accept the date put forward by the president, and that it would not be proper for parliament to “willy-nilly” call someone to appear when the person had other commitments.
Shivambu continued to raise objections, but Mapisa-Nqakula said she had declared the subject closed. When the EFF protested further, she gave instructions that Shivambu and Mkhaliphi be removed from the virtual meeting, at one point shouting “Phuma” (get out), as she had in the question session on 30 August when the party heckled the president.
Mapisa-Nqakula has been accused of shielding Ramaphosa by calling time on the sitting while MPs were still demanding answers.
She promised MPs that a motion would be tabled for his next question session to extend beyond three hours. Ramaphosa had told the house that though he was ready to explain what had happened at his Phala Phala farm in February 2020, he had been advised to wait until criminal and other investigations had been completed.
“I have been counselled, advised that it is best to address this matter when those processes have been done,” he said. The president went on to accuse the opposition of trying to make mileage out of the theft of foreign currency from the farm that came to light only this year when former State Security Agency director-general Arthur Fraser accused Ramaphosa of concealing the incident.
Fraser opened a case of corruption, kidnapping and money-laundering against the president.
Zungula has tabled a motion for Ramaphosa’s impeachment, with the broad support of other opposition parties. According to parliamentary rules, the speaker must now appoint an independent panel to consider whether there is sufficient to proceed to an impeachment inquiry.
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