Dlamini’s budget debate erupts into chaos in House

THE budget debate of the Social Development Department degenerated into chaos yesterday, amid points of order, use of unparliamentary language and the drowning out of speakers during their addresses.

The meeting started on the wrong note when chairman of the mini-plenary Pule Mabe asked members of the public to refrain from cheering minister Bathabile Dlamini when she presented her budget vote.

“Don’t clap hands and show other signs that disturb running of the Parliament.

“Participate by listening,” Mabe said.

But Mabe had his hands full as he tried to run the meeting.

When the chairperson of the social development portfolio committee Zoleka Capa was on the podium a point of order was raised.

“She has not started with her speech.

“Can she stick to the debate,” said an opposition MP after Capa had used her speech to lash out at the opposition in Xhosa.

Though Capa was allowed to continue her speech, she later demanded that IFP MP Liezl van der Merwe stick to the debate since she had been called to order earlier.

During the debate, Dlamini was severely criticised and was accused, among other things, of not caring about the poor and of sleeping in luxury hotels.

She was also accused of using food parcels from Sassa to buy votes for the ANC.

References to the use of department funds to pay for the security of her children and herself were repeatedly made, as was the R1 billion irregular expenditure in her department.

None of the speakers could complete a speech without being jeered, or being disrupted by points of order. Matters heated up even more when the IFP’s Mkhuleko Hlengwa lashed out at Mabe for singling him out for “noise-making”.

Dlamini said it was like listening to the propaganda about the things said about her by the opposition.

She defended the estimated R6bn to be spent to take over the payment of grants in the next five years, saying the details were in the department’s documents.

“If you steal information you get half the truths and half the lies.

“You must never allow yourselves to be used by people who want to give wrong information,” she said, accusing the opposition of not knowing about poor people.