DA said to hamper Parliament’s work

Party blasted for walking out of security and justice committee meeting, thereby ‘stalling’ adoption of a bill

PARLIAMENT has lashed out at the DA and accused the party of deliberately hampering its work after party representatives walked out of the select committee on security and justice meeting to consider a bill.

Yesterday, the chairperson of the select committee on security and justice, Simphiwe Mthimunye, said he was concerned by the behaviour of the DA when the committee had to adopt the Defence Amendment Bill.

“The DA has used the opportunity to stall the adoption of legislation by walking out of the meeting when it came to the consideration of the bill. “This severely affects service delivery to all South Africans. It is in poor taste. We will not always agree on matters but it is important to put all South Africans first,” said Mthimunye.

He said various committees, including the select committee on co-operative governance and traditional affairs, and select committee on petitions and executive undertakings, had also complained about the party’s behaviour.

DA MP George Michalakis, who sits on the committee, hit back and said ANC MPs who did not attend meetings were to blame for the committee not quorating and “their bad bills” not being adopted.

“What the chairperson of the committee doesn’t say is two things.

“The first one is that he is using Parliament and Parliament’s media office to drive his own political agenda. He is now all of a sudden fighting a political party through Parliament, and the taxpayers are paying for that.

“Secondly, he is not answering why the ANC as the government was not there to pass their own bill. The reason why we were able as the opposition to break the quorum is because the ANC members were not at work,” said Michalakis.

The committee consists of 12 members, seven from the ANC and the rest from the opposition.

On Wednesday, when the committee considered the bill, there were only four ANC MPs and two

COMIC TURN EFF MPs.

The DA said it could not vote with the opposition on the bill because it did not allow room for transparency.

Michalakis said the DA had two options: to walk out of the meeting or abstain from voting.

“Between the ANC and the EFF they did not have the quorum to pass the bill; the mechanism that we used was to break the quorum.

“We can’t be party to a bill that is not in the interest of the people, and therefore we broke the quorum. An alternative would be for us to sit there and watch them pass the bill, which in my opinion was not the best option,” said Michalakis.

This severely affects service delivery to all South Africans. It is in poor taste.

Simphiwe Mthimunye

Chairperson security, justice select committee