Parliament – The Democratic Alliance (DA) said on Monday it would bring a motion of no confidence in President Jacob Zuma, which the Speaker’s office confirmed would be placed on the order paper of the National Assembly.
Speaker Baleka Mbete, in a letter to DA leader Mmusi Maimane, said the motion would be published in the first available order paper of the year and that she was consulting with the leader of government business, Deputy President Cyril Ramaphosa, and the chief whip of the ANC, in this regard.
ANC chief whip Stone Sizani dismissed the planned motion as a lame publicity stunt, following several similar efforts by the opposition in recent months.
But Maimane said a debate on Zuma’s fitness for high office was necessary in light of the president’s “reckless” decision to fire Nhlanhla Nene as finance minister in December.
He said the debate had been given greater urgency still by Zuma’s comments in an interview on Sunday that the outcry over Nene’s sacking and the financial markets’ reaction had been exaggerated.
“This blatant denialism is an insult to every South African who has felt, and will continue to feel, the damaging effects the president’s decision had on our economy,” he said. “Instead of taking responsibility for his poor decision, President Zuma is shirking it.
“President Zuma’s leadership on the economy is non-existent, and he is incapable of leading us out of the crisis of low growth and high unemployment that we face. The reality is without a strong and growing economy, jobs cannot be created for the millions of South Africans who simply cannot find work,” Maimane said.
In September, a DA motion to have Zuma impeached over the government’s failure to arrest Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir in accordance with an International Criminal Court warrant fell flat as the opposition failed to close ranks.
In March last year, tiny opposition outfit Agang brought a motion of no confidence in Zuma only to withdraw it in protest at Mbete’s refusal to recuse herself from the ensuing debate, in a move that exasperated fellow opposition parties.
Sizani’s office on Monday accused the DA of abusing an oversight mechanism and said the motion would fail.
“Over a period of time the DA has abused, misused and trivialised this type of motion merely to score a few headlines, hence today it has lost significance. The DA has turned this powerful parliamentary oversight mechanism into a trite ritual that very few in our society, rather than take seriously, correctly see it as a waste of parliament’s valuable time.”
Mbete’s office in the meanwhile objected to a DA statement suggesting that she had agreed to a no confidence debate, pointing out that this was not within her ambit, but a decision that would be taken by MPs once the motion had been put.
African News Agency
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