Cape Town - Parliament’s powers and privileges committee on Friday suspended disciplinary hearings against 20 EFF politicians.
This was to allow Magdalene Moonsamy more time to provide the committee with a medical certificate to explain for her no-show on Tuesday.
“On Tuesday, the first day of the hearing, Mr Julius Malema informed the committee that Ms Moonsamy was unwell and promised that a medical certificate will be provided to the committee.
“The committee has not received the said certificate and has decided to afford Ms Moonsamy more time to furnish the committee with the letter, hence the suspension of proceedings,” said Lemias Mashile, the chairman of the committee on Friday.
The hearings started on Tuesday and will resume next Wednesday.
MPs sitting on the committee were warned on Thursday to keep their personal feelings out of the disciplinary process against the 20 EFF politicians.
While questioning a witness, ANC MP Mnyamezeli Booi had tried to make a statement about the EFF MPs’ conduct.
“When you hear utterances that say you would never leave here on Friday until you answer that question, is that about the rules or what is it about?” he asked.
Booi was referring to the incident on August 21 in which the EFF disrupted proceedings while President Jacob Zuma was answering questions.
Booi expressed his opinions about the conduct of EFF chief whip Floyd Shivambu when Deputy President Cyril Ramaphosa was answering questions in the House.
“The worst example that I’ve ever seen in my whole life… is what the deputy president of the country suffered when the gesture of the middle finger was made by a Member of Parliament to him.”
But IFP MP Mangaqa Mncwango interjected, saying he was “not comfortable with the statement that I was hearing”.
“We can’t be actually expressing our personal feelings about what actually happened and what did not happen. Otherwise we are messing this process up.
“I feel that the honourable member (Booi) should actually hold his horses on that one because we are not concluding yet, we are merely asking questions of clarity and the process in my view is still ongoing.”
Committee chairman Lemias Mashile agreed. “I think that point of order is sustained. Let’s reserve some of the things for when we get to the deliberations and on Friday let’s just examine the evidence as led in front of us.”
Secretary to the National Assembly Masibulele Xaso concluded his evidence on Thursday evening.
He was given a pointer and asked to identify each EFF politician by name from the footage, which was shown on a projector.
Speaker Baleka Mbete had tried to boot out the EFF MPs after they started chanting “pay back the money”, directed at Zuma.
They were referring to the R246 million in state funds spent on his private Nkandla homestead.
Cape Argus and Sapa