Africa-Press – South-Africa. The historic Cape Town City Hall is likely to host next week’s parliamentary sitting where lawmakers will decide on President Cyril Ramaphosa’s fate.
Next Tuesday (13 December), the National Assembly meets to consider and decide whether it will adopt the Section 89 panel report into President Cyril Ramaphosa’s Phala Phala dealings.
The meeting was initially scheduled for Tuesday this week, but the National Assembly programming committee decided that the meeting should be moved to a venue that can accommodate all 400 MPs.
During the penultimate sitting for 2022, ANC parliamentary chief whip Pemmy Majodina moved a motion for the National Assembly to hold next Tuesday’s sitting at the Cape Town City Hall.
The House accepted Majodina’s motion.
By Monday night, it was still unclear where next Tuesday’s sitting would be held and if Ramaphosa’s legal challenge to the panel’s report would have a bearing on Parliament’s work.
Parliamentary legal advisor Zuraya Adhikarie said there were competing arguments over whether the sub judice rule could be used.
Adhikarie said an automatic and complete bar to the National Assembly was not permissible, especially when it was about holding the executive to account.
ATM leader Vuyolwethu Zungula asked whether Speaker Nosiviwe Mapisa-Nqakula would oppose Ramaphosa’s application to the Constitutional Court.
She said that her team was still assisting her on how to respond to it, adding that if there was anything unclear in Parliament’s legal opinion, they would seek a second one from a senior counsel.
The ANC decided to use its majority in Parliament to reject a Section 89 report that found Ramaphosa had a case to answer on the Phala Phala burglary scandal.
Mapisa-Nqakula appointed the Section 89 inquiry panel following a motion by Zungula for Ramaphosa’s removal on the grounds of “a serious violation of the Constitution or the law and serious misconduct”.
Ramaphosa has been under pressure following the release of the panel’s report, which made damning findings against him concerning the theft of $580 000 (R10 million) from his game farm in Limpopo.
He failed to convince the panel that he had acted in accordance with the law and the Constitution after the burglary and theft, and could face an impeachment investigation by lawmakers.
Ramaphosa, who was on the brink of resigning, has maintained his innocence.
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