National Assembly Speaker Max Sisulu had his hands full on Thursday when unruly MPs broke from tradition and used the final sitting of the house this year to deliver parting blows to their political opponents, instead of making the usual collegial statements about the holidays.
It began when the house delivered a guilty verdict against ANC MP Yolanda Botha for “wilfully misleading” Parliament.
Botha was investigated by the joint committee on ethics and members’ interests after the Mail & Guardian reported she had received more than R1.2 million in benefits from a company that won R50m in tenders from the Northern Cape government department she once led.
Amid cries of “resign”, “shame on you” and “she must be fired” from the opposition benches, a seemingly contrite Botha stood with her head bowed as ANC MP and ethics committee chairman Ben Turok read the “unanimous” verdict.
She was fined 30 days’ salary, the maximum penalty for transgressions of the code of conduct for MPs.
DA MP Anchen Dreyer slammed the ANC for using its majority on the committee to sanitise the final report on Botha by excising the recommendations for a criminal investigation.
She has laid a criminal complaint against Botha.
Temperatures in the House rose further when DA MP and Leader of the Opposition Lindiwe Mazibuko accused the ANC of abandoning the values of its founding members by voting for the so-called secrecy bill.
Labour Minister Mildred Oliphant criticised Mazibuko for invoking the memory of ANC veterans.
DA MP Manny de Freitas had ANC MPs spluttering in fury when he demanded that presidential spokesman Mac Maharaj be “suspended without delay” pending an investigation into allegations that he and his wife received a R1.2m “kickback” from a company that won a R265m transport-related tender during Maharaj’s tenure as transport minister.
ANC chief whip Mathole Motshekga interrupted him with a point of order.
“I thought that members of this Parliament would know that if there are allegations, they must be proven,” he said.
Oliphant then returned to the Protection of State Information Bill, saying the campaign against the bitterly contested piece of legislation was being driven by the media and foreign-based non-government organisations. - Political Bureau