MPs want to grill minister over Mugabe
Parliament’s portfolio committee on international relations and co-operation is anxious to grill minister Maite NkoanaMashabane on her decision to grant diplomatic immunity to Zimbabwean first lady Grace Mugabe.
National Assembly Speaker Baleka Mbete announced on Thursday that Parliament would look into the minister’s decision to let the wife of President Robert Mugabe avoid justice after she had allegedly assaulted a woman in Johannesburg.
The DA and the Inkatha Free- dom Party (IFP) wrote to Parliament, asking for an inquiry.
The DA has also taken Mashabane to court to compel her to explain her decision.
Nkoana-Mashabane wrote to the speaker, explaining why she absolved Mugabe of all culpability and gave her diplomatic immunity over the incident.
International relations and co-operation committee chairman Siphosezwe Masango said that a meeting between the minister and the committee would clarify her rationale rather than allow the opposition to exploit the situation to impeach the ANC.
“The minister has written a International Relations and Co-operation Minister Maite Nkoana-Mashabane wrote to the speaker explaining why she had absolved Zimbabwe’s Grace Mugabe of culpability./
letter to me indicating her willingness to come and explain to the committee. The letter is dated August 23. We looked at the requests from [the] IFP and
DA looking for her to explain. I thanked her for the letter and told her that the committee would like to summon her,” said Masango. Members of the port-
folio committee should be open to the possibility that there was nothing untoward about Nkoana-Mashabane’s decision, Masango said. Various countries in the world would have opted to grant the spouse of a head of state the same privilege, he said.
“Mugabe was granted immunity to leave the country. It is spousal immunity. The act speaks of derivative immunity, where if she is with the spouse of an official or a person who holds the diplomatic immunity, it applies to her as well,” he said.
Committee member for the DA Santosh Kalyan said it had been “unanimously accepted by all the parties present at the meeting that the minister must speak to the committee. The idea is to get the minister to explain how the Diplomatic Privileges and Immunities Act applies to the first lady as well as establish what kind of passport she travelled here with.”
She said it would be critical to determine the status of Mugabe’s visit as it appeared to be a personal one to resolve family matters.
There was no indication that she would appear on the Southern African Development Community programme or that she would address it, Kalyan said.