TUESDAY, 4:30PM:
ANC MEMBERS of a committee into the conduct of PAC MP Patricia de Lille refused to recuse themselves on Tuesday.
The committee was formed after De Lille, speaking in Parliament, named seven top ANC members, including three Cabinet ministers and two premiers, as being on a list of alleged apartheid spies.
Secretary-general of the Pan Africanist Congress, Mike Muendane, said so long as ANC members were sitting in judgement, De Lille’s constitutional rights and the rules of natural justice were being violated. The ANC was not only the aggrieved party but also the judge, jury and executioner.
He said his party knows the ANC has already drafted a resolution suspending De Lille from Parliament with full pay until 1999. That claim was backed up by Democratic Party chief whip Douglas Gibson, who told the committee he understands members of the ANC caucus have already agreed that De Lille should be suspended.
De Lille acted after the leader of her party, the Reverend Stanley Mogoba, was advised by President Nelson Mandela not to accept nomination to the parliamentary intelligence committee because he would have to submit to Intelligence Department clearance. The president denied he was implying Mogoba would not pass such a test, but that interpretation was seized on and a major controversy ensued.
The committee is expected to report to the National Assembly on Thursday.