Africa-Press – South-Africa. South Africa’s two biggest opposition parties will question President Cyril Ramaphosa on his administration’s failure to arrest the ever-increasing crime rate in this year’s first presidential question session in the National Assembly (NA) on Thursday.
While EFF leader Julius Malema is gunning for Police Minister Bheki Cele, DA leader John Steenhuisen is going after the national government’s central control of policing. This follows a debate on Ramaphosa’s State of the Nation Address (SONA) last month, in which most opposition speakers pointed out that crime continued to rise during Ramaphosa’s term.
Strangely absent from the question paper is Phala Phala and the energy crisis, even though IFP MP Mkhuleko Hlengwa asked whether the Department of Public Enterprises will be dissolved, which might see Eskom crop up in the follow-up questions.
Other topics to be broached include what South Africa’s strategic focus will be while it is chairing BRICS, the government’s plans to build a capable developmental state, and whether Ramaphosa intends referring the Expropriation Bill to the Constitutional Court to determine its constitutionality, given that Section 25 of the Constitution wasn’t amended.
The DA has long been advocating for the devolution of policing powers to provinces and municipalities, borne out of its federalist ideology. The ANC has resisted this, opting for “central command”.
In a debate in the National Council of Provinces in September 2021, Cele said the DA’s push for devolution is to “undermine the progressive gains of our glorious movement”.
Cele has long been in the crosshairs of opposition parties and civil society, as the crime rate continues to climb unabated. However, he survived the chop when Ramaphosa finally shuffled his Cabinet on Monday. Ramaphosa has previously publicly expressed his confidence in Cele.
During the debate on Ramaphosa’s State of the Nation Address last month, Cele was involved in a war of words with the EFF. This was also the case last year, when Cele had to withdraw his remark that Malema plotted to remove him with previous police commissioner, Khehla Sitole.
The sitting is scheduled to start at 14:00. It will be a hybrid sitting, with some members in the Good Hope Chamber and others on the virtual platform.
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