DA’s whips and shadows named
THE Democratic Alliance (DA) in the Eastern Cape yesterday unveiled its shadow cabinet and the team to lead their whippery at the Bhisho legislature for the new term of governance.
In a statement yesterday, party provincial leader Athol Trollip said MPL Bobby Stevenson had been elected as the party’s chief whip.
The party has now assumed the status of official opposition.
Only the ruling ANC and an official opposition party have chief whip portfolios, while other parties only have whips.
Trollip said MPLs Veliswa Mvenya and Edmund van Vuuren would take over as party whips and newly sworn-in MPL Ross Purdon would be the DA’s new caucus chairman. Purdon takes over from Mvenya who was caucus chair in the last term. Van Vuuren replaces the late Pine Pienaar as party whip.
Naming the shadow cabinet which will keep an eagle’s eye on the ANC MECs, Trollip said he would be the shadow MEC for rural development and agrarian reform.
Van Vuuren will be the shadow MEC for education and the office of the premier, and Stevenson will be shadow MEC for finance and safety and security.
Purdon will be the DA’s shadow MEC for economic development and environmental affairs, and will also double as shadow MEC for sport, recreation, arts and culture.
Mvenya will take over social development.
Newcomers in the legislature Celeste Barker and Marshall von Buchenroder will act as shadow MECs for health and transport respectively.
Another newcomer, former Nelson Mandela Bay Metro councillor and the youngest of the legislature’s 64 MPLs, Vicky Knoetze, will shadow roads and public works MEC Thandiswa Marawu.
Two former Buffalo City Metro councillors, Kobus Botha and Dora Nokonwaba Matikinca, will be shadow MECs for human settlements and co-operative governance and traditional affairs respectively.
Trollip yesterday said his party was more than ready to take up its position as official opposition in the Bhisho legislature.
The embattled Congress of the People, which had been the official opposition since 2009, had to surrender that status to the DA after they managed to win only one seat in the May elections. — asandan@dispatch.