Cape Town - The ANC in the Western Cape will not disrupt Premier Helen Zille’s State of the Province Address on Friday, saying it was not in their culture to do so.
ANC provincial secretary Songezo Mjongile said the party was in no way threatened by Zille’s address to the legislature because they would have the opportunity to express their views on what she would say.
“We are not the EFF,” Mjongile said, referring to last week’s disruptions by the EFF of President Jacob Zuma’s State of the Nation address in the National Assembly.
“We are there to raise issues of content and importance to our people. If the premier does not want to speak to our issues she must expect that the ANC is going to take up these issues very aggressively. Not just in the legislature but also outside.”
Top of the ANC’s list of expectations of Zille was a request that she move away from her usual rhetoric of the “best-run province” and take responsibility for the failure to ensure inclusive development.
More so, the ANC wants the Speaker of the Western Cape provincial Parliament, Sharna Fernandez, to step down.
ANC provincial leader Marius Fransman said they believed the executive was not only interfering but also instructing Fernandez on matters.
The ANC’s call follows a decision taken at the final sitting of the House in December that the deadlock between the ANC and DA over unparliamentary remarks made in the provincial Parliament, be referred to Western Cape Judge President John Hlophe.
But Fransman said it had subsequently come to light that the Speaker now wanted to overturn this process. “The Speaker, as instructed by Zille, meaning the executive, has now done a 360 degree somersault and wants to bring the matter back in-House to the rules committee.”
This showed the hypocrisy of the DA in the legislature, he said.
“The Speaker is being controlled by the premier and there is no separation of powers between the legislature and the executive in the province.:
Fernandez should “step down, step aside and, in fact, not even be present as the Speaker of the Legislature on Friday”.
Fransman said they would watch Fernandez closely on Friday.
Mjongile said the ANC did not expect much from Zille’s address. All the DA provincial government had done when it failed to deliver houses, provide land, address sanitation challenges and provide basic services, was to blame the national government.
He said despite promises, all the ANC had seen was a lack of action in dealing with crime, drug abuse and lack of opportunities for youth development in the province.
Fernandez was unavailable for comment on Wednesday night.
Cape Argus