The Democratic Alliance (DA) has quit the deputy chairmanship of the Western Cape’s public accounts committee in protest against what it says is African National Congress (ANC) manipulation.
DA MPL Robin Carlisle said on Friday he had officially informed the secretary of the provincial legislature of his decision to give up the post.
He said the public accounts committees in Parliament and the provinces had now been fully ”transformed” by the ANC.
In doing so, it had ensured that all the legislatures would be effectively denied their critical role of financial oversight and their right to inform the public when taxes were abused.
Carlisle said the ten Scopa committees were represented nationally in an umbrella organisation — the Association of Public Accounts Committees (Apac).
The election of the Apac executive at the annual conference in Kimberley on May 28 had been ”steamrollered” by ANC representatives ”with a clinical ruthlessness which would have made Hitler?s Panzer generals green with envy”.
”It was a disgraceful and deeply disconcerting performance, demonstrating beyond any doubt that the Scopas and Apac are to be nothing more than compliant tools of the ANC regimes,” he said.
”This is all part of a general pattern that has seen the removal of Ken Andrew, Gavin Woods and Martin Feinstein from any effective say in the oversight of public accounts in Parliament.”
Carlisle said he would remain ”for the moment” an ordinary member of the committee”. – Sapa