WEGE Bill not passed: ANC fails to make quorum

The highly problematic Women and Gender Equality Bill did not pass in the National Assembly this morning as the requisite number of 201 MPs were not present. 

The DA welcomes this development. This Bill did little to ensure real empowerment of women and was little more than an attempt by Minister Lulu Xingwana to legislate herself into relevance before the elections.

We dismiss the arguments made by some Ministers in the House today in response to their failure. It is not the Democratic Alliance's responsibility to ensure that bad legislation generated by an ANC government is passed. That is the ANC's responsibility, and they failed in this regard on all fronts.

This was yet another bad day at the office for ANC Chief Whip, Stone Sizani, who has proven unable to ensure proper attendance of his MPs.

I recommend that the Minister's anger at this embarrassing turn of events be directed at the ANC Chief Whip, not the DA.

Statement issued by Sandy Kalyan MP, Deputy Chief Whip of the Democratic Alliance, March 4 2014

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