Political Analyst Ongama Mtimka says it may not have been a wise move by the five African National Congress (ANC) MPs to have voted against party after the debate on the report of the Section 89 Panel into the Phala Phala saga.
The first and leading vote in favour of the panel’s report and for President Cyril Ramaphosa to face a section 89 inquiry, came from ANC MP Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma.
There were 214 votes against the report, 148 voted in favour and two abstentions.
Mtimka says, “In South Africa there has been a call in various times when member of Parliament needed to think more about their oath of office than the party line. However, voting against the party line at a time that is so close to a conference of the party, was not necessarily very thoughtful, because what is going to happen is that these members have opened themselves up to be purged after the ANC conference, when they could have pursued party based processes of bringing about change or accountability even if when the report comes back next year or one finding or the other is made by any of the institution.”
Aggrieved
The panel found that President Cyril Ramaphosa may have violated his oath of office.
Most of the ANC Members of Parliament (MPs) voted against the adoption of the report while the majority of opposition MPs voted in favour.
Dlamini-Zuma has sought to explain her reasons for voting in favour of the adoption of the report of the Independent Panel of Experts on the Phala Phala matter in the National Assembly.
She says as far as she is concerned, there’s nothing wrong with the report.
“I did inform the leadership even of how I am going to vote based on that, they know it. So they were not surprised. I am telling you what happened at the meeting I didn’t speak -I was on the list. There were 20-something people who still needed to speak so you can draw your own conclusion. If they say there was a decision, it means they are defining us out of that meeting and I did say to them this is wrong and you can’t give instructions based on the discussion that excluded others,” Dlamini-Zuma says.
VIDEO: Dlamini-Zuma on voting for adoption of Section 89 Phala Phala report:
