Publications
Partners
Economic Freedom Fighters members were back in Parliament today
after being thrown out and suspended last week for shouting and refusing to
listen to an “illegitimate” President Jacob Zuma.
They vowed to keep up their call for Zuma to resign and were
limbering up for his next appearance in the house on May 17.
To groans and chuckles, chairperson Mmatlala Grace Boroto
acknowledged the presence of EFF member of Parliament Nazier Paulsen in his red
workman’s jacket.
“The withdrawal of the EFF from the house has come to an end,’’
Boroto announced at the department of public service and administration’s budget
vote debate in the old National Assembly.
Unbowed after being thrown out last week, Paulsen kept up a running
lone heckle with ANC MPs. EFF deputy president and chief whip Floyd Shivambu sat
with him briefly.
Paulsen’s first point of order was a complaint that ANC MPs across
the way “are showing me vulgar things over there’’.
When the department’s Deputy Minister Ayanda Dlodlo praised the
Constitution, Paulsen quipped: “It’s no use if you are going to violate
it.”
Taken to task for not calling Zuma “honourable”, Paulsen relented
and said: “Ok. Mr Jacob Zuma, president of the ANC.”
In his speech, Paulsen blamed the government for service delivery
protests.
“Why the country is burning is because you are incapable of
delivering services to all those people.”
He told Public Service and Administration Minister Ngoako
Ramatlhodi, who was making his first budget vote speech for the department, that
the public service was incapable of doing what was needed to build the
country.
At times shouting through angry retorts by ANC MPs, Paulsen blamed
the government’s reliance on consultants and contractors for much of its
failures.
EFF spokesperson Mbuyiseni Ndlozi said: “We are ready for the 17th.
He [Zuma] must not come. He must resign before the 17th.”
He said nobody was injured during last week’s scuffles, during
which a glass of water went flying as protection officers pulled and pushed
shouting EFF MPs out of the National Assembly.
The following day, most opposition MPs boycotted Zuma’s reply to
his budget vote speech debate.
When Zuma appears on May 17, questions to him are expected to
include one from the African Christian Democratic Party on an apparent lack of
trust in the judiciary. The African Independent Congress would ask him about
recent protests and demonstrations. – News24
