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ActionSA has officially reached out to National Assembly Speaker Thoko Didiza and the Chairperson of Parliament’s Section 89 Committee, Makashule Gana.
The communication emphasizes the need for Parliament to legally challenge President Cyril Ramaphosa’s urgent request to block the impeachment committee from carrying out its constitutional responsibilities.
According to Lerato Ngobeni, a member of parliament, the Constitutional Court has previously determined that Parliament acted unlawfully by suspending the initial Section 89 process.
As such, she asserts that Parliament should not repeat this error and must avoid being misled into making the same unlawful decision again.
“President Ramaphosa’s claim of urgency is entirely self-created. If the president genuinely believed that the Independent Panel Report was unlawful or procedurally defective, he has had years to challenge it.
“Instead, he waited until Parliament finally moved to implement the Constitutional Court’s judgment before seeking to halt the process.
“South Africans are entitled to ask whether this application is genuinely about legal principle or simply an attempt to avoid parliamentary scrutiny. The need for accountability has only grown stronger since Parliament’s original decision in 2022,” she said.
New developments in the Phala Phala case have raised significant concerns regarding various aspects of the incident.
Ngobeni disclosed that there are unresolved questions about the amount of money that was stolen, the behavior of law enforcement officials, and notable inconsistencies between the findings of the Independent Police Investigative Directorate (IPID) and the subsequent disciplinary actions taken by the South African Police Service (SAPS) against the implicated officials.
ActionSA files PAIA
These issues suggest a complicated interplay between investigation outcomes and police misconduct, warranting a closer examination of the case.
She added, “ActionSA has already submitted a PAIA application to obtain the records of these disciplinary proceedings after a reply to our parliamentary question revealed that SAPS cleared officials whose conduct had previously been criticised by IPID.
“South Africans deserve to know why these processes reached such dramatically different conclusions. We, therefore, call on Parliament to defend its constitutional independence, legally oppose the President’s application, and ensure that the Section 89 Committee proceeds without delay.”
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Ngobeni urged all parliamentary parties, including those in the Government of National Unity, to make a critical decision regarding their stance on two pivotal concepts: constitutional accountability and political expediency.
“The Constitutional Court has given Parliament a second opportunity to do its job. For the sake of public confidence in our democracy, Parliament must get it right this time,” she stated.
