MBOMBELA – A sitting of the Mpumalanga Legislature carried on for hours with little being achieved on Tuesday when opposition parties engaged in extended arguments with the Speaker. They said the motions they wanted to debate were not getting the attention they deserved.
In the previous sitting the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) submitted a notice of motion that the rules around the premier’s “inability to perform his functions” due to his extended sick leave, be debated. Instead the house debated the challenges of the province’s land-restitution programme, specifically the Kiepersol land claim, this week.
The party’s provincial leader, Mr Collen Sedibe objected. “This debate here is 10 months old. It was not attended to by the relevant department, and now it is already in the Land Claims Court,” he said.
His whip, Mr Alfred Skhosana, and Sedibe insisted that their latest motion be debated instead. “Now you bring out some things that are so strange, I mean this thing is so old,” Skhosana argued.
The Speaker, Ms Thandi Shongwe, countered that she never ruled that the motion would be debated in the next sitting, and many motions were waiting in line, and that this would still be debated.
“All motions must get the attention they deserve, one is not more important than the other. What is so special about this one?” Shongwe said.
Sedibe argued it was an urgent matter, as the premier had not been able to answer to the legislature for months.
The arguments continued until Shongwe gave both MPLs final warnings.
“This is threatening, unparliamentary conduct,” she said.
As soon as the EFF MPLs sat down, Mr James Masango, the DA’s provincial party leader, objected that the Office of the Speaker chose which motion was debated, and when.
She began to allow human settlements MEC, Ms Violet Siwela, a point of order, and another extended argument ensued about allowing a point of order on a point of order.
On legal advice she allowed Masango to speak “for the sake of freedom of speech”.
“There is a gap in the rules,” he said. “A party should have the right to decide which of its motions are debated, not the Speaker. It is our motions, not hers.”
The parties represented in the legislature have a number of outstanding motions, including one submitted by the DA to debate the Speaker’s impartiality following an incident over a dress worn by DA MPL, Ms Jane Sithole, earlier this year.
In the sitting on Tuesday, the ANC’s chief whip, Mr Johan Mkhatshwa, tabled a notice of motion that Sedibe’s official residence be debated in its next sitting, arguing he had misled the house.
