EFF cause chaos over Gupta ties
EFF MPs walked out of Parliament yesterday after accusing President Jacob Zuma of failing to answer questions on his links with the Gupta family and for allegedly helping his son, Duduzane, to get business opportunities.
In a heated session, punctuated by insults and name-calling, Zuma met a hostile reception from the opposition in the chambers yesterday.
Constantly referring to him as “Duduzane’s father” instead of the Parliamentary honorific of “honourable President,” the EFF’s actions saw the House degenerate into chaos.
Their MPs staged a walkout just as Deputy Speaker Lechesa Tsenoli was about to call the protection officers of Parliament to eject them from the House.
This was almost two hours from the time the party MPs started disrupting proceedings.
They insisted that they would not allow Zuma to leave without answering questions.
The question and answer sessions with the President have often degenerated into chaos over the past three years.
Insults flew across the benches of the House, as the EFF insisted that Zuma had to come clean on his dealings in government.
DA leader Mmusi Maimane also demanded answers on contracts to his family but Zuma denied he was involved.
Zuma denied he was involved in wrongdoing and said he would soon appoint a commission of inquiry into state capture.
He said the lawyers were working on the matter.
“I have said so here and said so today, that I will appoint a commission of inquiry. I have been working with the legal people to work on it and will be announcing it in due course,” he said.
Zuma denied that his firing of Pravin Gordhan as finance minister shook the economy. He said many countries were facing a global economic slowdown.
The axing of Gordhan in March has led to protests against Zuma across the country, with several marches held since then.
Civil society groups and some in the ANC, including its stalwarts, have called for Zuma to go.
This culminated in more than 26 ANC MPs voting against Zuma in the motion of no confidence.
Zuma denied there was a witch-hunt in the ANC against MPs who voted against him in the motion of no-confidence.
“I am told the DA’s constitution is clear that if a member of the DA votes against the DA they are out. You don’t even do the witch-hunt. They are out,” said Zuma.
The president also said he was not directly involved in the granting of diplomatic immunity to Grace Mugabe.
This followed questions from Maimane and Liezl van der Merwe, of the IFP.
“With Grace Mugabe, I am not a lawyer. How it was done, I was not with the department,” he said.
He denied he opened the country to abuse from Mugabe.
He said the police were also involved in the matter and if the opposition wanted answers they can go and check with the police.
Zuma said he did not want to lie as to how the matter came about and further stated that he did not know who in his cabinet were the abusers of women, following claims by Social Development Minister Bathabile Dlamini that there were worse men in the government than former deputy minister of higher education, Mduduzi Manana.