Acting Speaker Frolick says Parly's presiding officers can't interfere in Mapisa-Nqakula ethics complaint

Source: EWN Traffic
Author: Lindsay Dentlinger

CAPE TOWN - Acting National Assembly Speaker Cedric Frolick says Parliament's presiding officers cannot and will not interfere in an ethics complaint against Speaker Nosiviwe Mapisa-Nqakula laid against her by two opposition parties.

Mapisa-Nqakula, who has been in France during the week attending a women speaker's forum, is being accused of receiving kickbacks while she was the Minister of Defence.

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Frolick said the rules did not allow him to question how long the committee would take to address the complaint, as the Democratic Alliance (DA) and Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) put pressure on Parliament to deal swiftly with the matter.

Mapisa-Nqakula was already in hot water over whether she misled Parliament on a secret salary hike for the secretary to Parliament.

Now, despite pressure from opposition parties for Parliament to deal speedily with this second complaint, Frolick said he could not interfere.

"The procedure is that if a complaint has been laid, then the acting registrar will deal with the matter in terms of the code, and the affected members will be informed accordingly, and they will interact with the acting registrar, and she reports to the joint committee on ethics."

The ethics committee has not met at all so far in 2024, and only met six times in 2023, which parties said was a concern when it came to this matter.

"The only thing that the speaker is supposed to do is resign," said the EFF's Hlengiwe Mkhaliphi.

She said it was also a concern that Parliament had not made a permanent appointment for a registrar of members' interests in more than five years, with Advocate Anthea Gordon acting since 2018.