DA to move motion of no confidence in Justice Committee Chair
29 April 2015
Today’s sitting of Parliament’s Portfolio Committee for Justice and Correctional Services was a disgrace due to the unnecessary levels of contempt shown for Public Protector, Thuli Madonsela, by Committee Chairperson, Dr Mathole Motshekga, and his colleagues-coupled with indefensible personal attacks on the Public Protector.
Adv Madonsela appeared before the Committee to outline the budgetary constraints that limit her ability to discharge the crucial mandate of her office.
As a result, the DA gave notice to move a motion of no confidence in Dr Motshekga at the very next sitting of the Committee. Dr Motshekga is intent on using every opportunity to further a political agenda by depriving the Office of the Public Protector of vital resourcing.
Adv Madonsela told the Committee that her office is unable to fully discharge its critical constitutional mandate due to a shortfall in its budget. She indicated that her office would need at least R200 million more per year to capacitate her office. The ANC in Parliament refused to entertain this request.
The fact of the matter is that the Public Protector is not sufficiently funded and resourced, as the Committee has repeatedly been told.
This state of affairs suits the ANC’s agenda to diminish this critical institution, tasked by the Constitution with supporting and strengthening South Africa’s democracy. Without sufficient funding and resources it will not be able to optimally serve its mandate in the interests of South Africa and its people.
In the Committee today, Dr Motshekga further ignored all rules and conventions in order to paint the Public Protector as being unprepared and disorganised, despite the fact that her Office had prepared a thorough presentation, and gave extensive feedback to members.
As pointed out by the Public Protector, she has been in office for six years but has been met with nothing but hostility from the Committee Chairperson since the release of the Nkandla report last year.
That the Chairperson and ANC in the Committee have shown complete contempt for the Public Protector and her work is scandalous. The ANC’s outright refusal to give meaning to the remedial action outlined in her Nkandla report ‘Secure in Comfort’, which found that President Jacob Zuma is liable to pay a portion of the R246 million of public money used for upgrades at Nkandla, is the sort of contempt we have come to expect.
If Dr Motshekga continues to Chair the Justice Committee and act with blatant bias it will be to the detriment of the institutions tasked with upholding and effecting the country’s constitutional democracy.
Statement issued by Glynnis Breytenbach MP, DA Shadow Minister of Justice, April 29 2015
