Parliament - Parliament learnt last Wednesday that a certain “device” would be used as part of security measures for the State of the Nation address, National Assembly Speaker Baleka Mbete has conceded, but said the plan was never to block journalists' cellphone reception.
Mbete told journalists at Parliament on Tuesday that during a briefing on security plans for the State of the Nation address, “we became aware that there was a plan for certain equipment to be deployed”.
“It is an item we received as a report along with many other reports, without necessarily knowing the detail, in particular (the) effects, because it was an item dealing with what measures had to be taken for the protection, in particular, of the head of state and the deputy president,” she added.
“I repeat, the media was not a target, was not mentioned, was never on anybody's mind. Of course what happened, happened.”
Mbete said the device used to block cellphone reception in the Assembly ahead of President Jacob Zuma's address, belonged to a state department.
She said Parliament had since received a report about the incident but she would leave it to that department, which she declined to name, to relay that to the media.
“We believe that the media will still be addressed (by the department) and they will be able to probe the detail of that report that will come from the owners of the device.”
In the meanwhile, a lawyer for Parliament reportedly told the Western Cape High Court that the National Intelligence Agency had been responsible for the signal jamming.
Media houses have approached the court for an order to ensure there will not be a repeat of the telecommunications blackout in the Assembly that began several hours before Zuma was due to commence his speech.
National Council of Provinces chairwoman Thandi Modise added:
“We want to reiterate we do not have any device to scramble, we do not order the use of any device to scramble.”
She said there was co-operation between the presiding officers and ministers in the security clusters “to ensure that things go well” at the opening of Parliament, but insisted that presiding officers were not given any detail of a device that would be used.
“In fact the words they used was 'somebody has some machines'. Now we did not get into understanding that because surely if the understanding was that there was going to be scrambling we would have wanted to know.
“And surely - even if, I mean you have no regards for us, you would actually at least give us a little bit of understanding - if we wanted to scramble something we would not do it, as you say, long before the House sat. We would not do that.”
Both Modise and Mbete, as well as Deputy Speaker Lechesa Tsenoli, insisted that Parliament had been within its rights to have Economic Freedom Fighters' MPs forcibly ejected by police.
Modise rejected the notion that calling police into the Chamber violated the constitutional separation of powers, saying that police were deployed in the country's courts too.
“Does separation of powers actually mean that Parliament cannot employ the services of the police? And I am saying we should look at that. Take the situation in the courts, because if that argument that the police should not in any way be seen near the legislative sector, then it shouldn't also be seen in the courts, and yet it is not like that.
“I think we need to get into the broader understanding what the separation of powers means. We were upfront... we did say the security services were employed in support of the parliamentary protection services.
“We did expect that we will have police there.”
Sapa