MBOMBELA – Opposition parties have voiced their frustration with the provincial legislature, charging that their complaints and questions were not dealt with by the ANC. However, it seems as if their concerns will go unheeded after the motion presented by Mr Collen Sedibe, EFF member of parliament (MPL), during a sitting on Tuesday April 21, was not accepted.
During the debate preceding the vote, Sedibe said the EFF was unhappy with how complaints were dealt with by the executive council. He said it was indicative of the ruling party taking for granted the electorate, whose concerns opposition party members raised. According to him they received no progress reports on their written concerns nor any indication that a matter was being attended to.
The ANC responded by calling the issues non-existent and the motion politically senseless. But Mr Cleopas Maunye of the Bushbuckridge Residents Association said he had been voted into legislature by the public to represent them. “We need to look at better ways to work with the matters through the processes of the house,” Maunye said.
Mr Bosman Grobler, DA MPL said his party too had experienced limited success with motions to the house, charging that the ANC voted against anything his party presented because it came from the DA. He said written statements were not responded to, despite the party representing a part of the province’s population.
He mentioned that it had asked the MEC for cooperative governance earlier this year to intervene in municipalities to help them pay their accounts to Eskom. Now five local municipalities were among the 20 owing the most money to the power utility, which was considering regularly cutting off their power supply.
Mr Sibusiso Malaza, ANC MPL and chair of the Select Committee on Public Accounts, however, called Sedibe’s motion a “desperate attempt by a party with nothing to offer”. He charged that the EFF was notably absent from committee and oversight meetings in legislature.
Sedibe also submitted a notice of motion for the house to debate the possible renaming of the Kurger National Park and Kruger Mpumalanga International Airport during its next sitting to recognise icons of the freedom struggle instead.
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