POLICE Minister Nathi Mthethwa will be out of the country on the date provisionally set down for a debate on the apartheid-era National Key Points Act.
As the minister under whom the legislation falls, Mthethwa would usually be expected to participate in the debate, but his spokesman, Zweli Mnisi, said on Sunday he would be in Moscow in the week of June 6 for an international conference on drug trafficking.
The act, used by the apartheid government to cloak the actions of the security establishment in secrecy, was cited as the reason details of a R206 million security upgrade at President Jacob Zuma’s Nkandla home could not be made public, putting the ANC government in the awkward position of invoking legislation used to suppress freedom of expression by its hated predecessors.
Deputy Public Works Minister Jeremy Cronin has said the act is probably unconstitutional.
But the Public Works Department asked for a report on an investigation it conducted into the Nkandla project to be dealt with behind closed doors by Parliament as the information was classified.
Nkandla is a declared national key point, but the full list of such sites is kept secret, making it possible for members of the public to break the law without being aware of it.
Anchen Dreyer, DA spokeswoman on public works, said yesterday she would write to Deputy President Kgalema Motlanthe, the leader of government business, to ask for the full list of national key points to be presented to Parliament before the debate, provisionally scheduled for June 6, after the failure of attempts to have the list tabled before the portfolio committee on police.
“Parliament cannot be expected to conduct its constitutionally mandated oversight role during the debate without having all the necessary information before it,” she said.
She described the success of her attempt to have the debate as “a bit of a breakthrough” as many previous motions for debates put forward by the DA had been blocked by the ANC.
It followed the successful holding of debates on the youth wage subsidy and the Gupta scandal, suggesting Parliament, which had been sliding towards irrelevance, was “upping its game”.
Asked whether the DA would consider bringing a private member’s bill to replace the act, she said it would consider its options after the debate, depending on the response.
Mnisi said he was not aware of any moves from the government’s side to update the legislation. The minister had not yet been told of the debate, he said.
Moloto Mothapo, spokesman for ANC chief whip Mathole Motshekga, said he was aware the DA had been given a slot for a debate on June 6, but he did not know what the topic would be.
He said the DA had tried earlier this year to have a debate scheduled on the National Key Points Act, but as far as he was aware this topic had lapsed and he was not sure whether it had been resuscitated.
Daily News