Speaker allows democracy in council to crumble, says DA
The DA in the metro will call for the Speaker and Chief Whip of the city to resign their positions as leadership of the council.
If they fail to do so, the DA is prepared to report their conduct to the Rules and Ethics committees.
This follows the defection of Clr Hendrik Shilabe from the DA, in a chaotic incident that took place on March 26.
In what the DA describes as “an obviously orchestrated move”, the Speaker, Clr Patricia Kumalo, allowed Shilabe to speak after she had already announced that the DA had taken up all of its time.
This is unprecedented in the council chamber.
Moreover, Kumalo had claimed, before DA leader Fortune Mahano stood up to respond to the Mayor’s State of the City address, that, in fact, she had not received a speakers list from the DA.
The DA feels this was another example of the way in which the Speaker and the Chief Whip, Robert Mashego, colluded to make Shilabe’s defection as dramatic as possible.
In fact, the programming committee, of which Mashego is chairman, had agreed in its meeting on Tuesday, March 25, that parties did not have to submit speakers lists, as speaking times for each party had already been allocated.
Kumalo ignored several points of order as the chamber descended into chaos.
During the commotion, Mashego admitted to the DA’s Chief Whip Andre du Plessis, that Kumalo was out of order and agreed that Shilabe should have been removed from the chamber.
However, Mashego took no steps to make that happen, as was his duty.
Both he and Kumalo displayed such outrageous partiality that the DA will not hesitate to call for a motion of no confidence in both of them at the April council meeting, should the Rules and Ethics committees not take up the matter properly.
This is one of a multitude of problems that the DA is reported to have experienced at the hands of the Speaker, both politically and administratively, during this term of office.
“We believe that she is making a mockery of South Africa’s hard fought for democracy, in that she allowed her party to play political games when, in fact, serious service delivery issues should have been thoroughly debated and heard,” said Fortune Mahano, the DA caucus leader in the metro.
