DA move on Nkandla irrational, Sizani says

[caption id="attachment_35483" align="alignright" width="405"] EYE OF THE STORM: President Jacob Zuma's Nkandla compound[/caption]

THE ANC has urged the DA to allow the National Assembly space to decide whether it wants to establish an ad hoc committee into President Jacob Zuma's Nkandla homestead.

Stone Sizani, the ANC chief whip, said yesterday that the DA should not put pressure on National Assembly Speaker Baleka Mbete to act outside the institution's rules.

Sizani said the DA's request for the re-establishment of the Nkandla ad hoc committee was extremely bizarre, irrational and premature.

"It is perplexing that the DA would make such a frivolous request, and even threaten legal action, on a matter it knows well is in conflict with the rules and procedures of parliament. No court will take such absurdity seriously," Sizani said.

His comments came after DA federal executive chairman James Selfe claimed that Mbete was reluctant to establish a new committee.

"Earlier this week I wrote a letter to the speaker challenging her assertion that due to an oversight in parliamentary rules, it was currently the National Assembly's duty to establish a new ad hoc committee," Selfe said.

In her response to Selfe, Mbete said as the speaker of the National Assembly, she did not have the authority to set up an ad hoc committee and that only the chamber could do so by way of resolution during one of its sittings.

But Selfe is arguing that the rules of parliament allow Mbete to institute an ad hoc committee when the institution is in adjournment or recess.

However, the ANC is arguing that Mbete does not have such powers as parliament is not in recess as far as it is concerned. "Only a full sitting of the assembly can take such a decision. The speaker is only empowered to establish such a committee if the National Assembly is in recess," Sizani said.

The tussle came as Zuma wrote to Mbete yesterday, making a commitment to submit his response to parliament on the public protector's investigation on upgrades to his home once he had received a preliminary report by the Special Investigating Unit on a similar matter.

Zuma had not fully responded to the public protector's report, saying he was awaiting the SIU report into the R246-million security upgrades to his Nkandla estate. - Aphiwe Deklerk