The Powers and Privileges committee says there’s no reasonable prospects of success in charging Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) members for contempt of Parliament during this year’s State of the Nation Address (SONA).
They were accused of disrupting SONA in February. The committee recommends that the matter should not be proceeded with.
It says it is of the view that Presiding Officers were empowered to form an opinion that the members we deliberately contravening the Joint Rules or disregarding authority, however they exercised patience and elected not to do so.
Delay:
The EFF caused a one-and-a-half hour delay at the SONA raising objections to former president FW De Klerk‘s presence in the house and demanding that Minister of Public Enterprises Pravin Gordhan be fired.
EFF’s Julius Malema requests that FW de Klerk be removed from Parliament:
When the house eventually resumed, the EFF chose to walk out.
EFF Spokesperson, Delisile Ngwenya, says they did not believe President Cyril Ramaphosa would keep to the promises made in the speech.
“I do believe that most South Africans, especially the majority of this country, support what we did. We know for a fact with social media that black South Africans are happy with what we did. We felt that the SONA did not deserve us sitting there and listening to it. There was no way we could allow Ramaphosa to continue speaking to South Africans and continue making all those promises that he knew very well he was not going to keep,” says Ngwenya.
EFF’s Julius Malema says President Cyril Ramaphosa is afraid of Minister Pravin Gordhan:
It recommends that process to update the Joint Rules should be embarked upon as a matter of urgency to deal with incidents of this nature.
The 2020 State of the Nation Address was delivered by President Cyril Ramaphosa on Thursday, 13 February 2020.
The SONA is an annual joint sitting of the National Assembly and National Council of Provinces. It provides an overview of current developments in the country and sets out government’s key plans for the year ahead.
