By Lehlohonolo Lehana.
The Umkhonto we Sizwe (MK) party has written to National Assembly Speaker Thoko Didiza indicating its decision to remove 15 of its MPs in the National Assembly.
The bulk of them were sworn-in less than two months ago on 25 June.
MK party’s spokesperson Nhlamulo Ndhlela says many of those who were on the list were not supposed to be there, the election list was manipulated.
Ndhlela said, the party had informed all 15 members of their removal from the National Assembly.
Parliament’s spokesperson Moloto Mothapo says the Speaker is considering the MK Party letter and the decision will be made in due course.
“Parliament confirms that it has received correspondence from the MK Party advising the Speaker of the National Assembly of its decision to remove 15 of its public representatives from the National Assembly. According to the constitution, a person loses membership of the National Assembly if they cease to be a member of the party that nominated them to the National Assembly.”
The dismissals occurred just days after the party, for the second time,removed Arthur Zwane from his role as secretary-general of the MK party.
The party won just over 14% of the national vote to make it the third largest party, picking up 58 seats in Parliament.
MK Party, which advocates for the nationalising land and banks and overhauling the constitution, unseated the African National Congress (ANC) as the largest party in the populous province of KwaZulu-Natal. It achieved just under half the vote compared to the ANC’s 17%.
Meanwhile the Democratic Alliance (DA) has accused MK Party of plotting to collapse service delivery in KwaZulu-Natal by ensuring that government funds did not reach “the poor”.
This after the MK Party in the KZN Legislature had voted against the approval of all provincial departments’ budgets in recent portfolio committee meetings.
The MK Party — which has the highest number of MPLs in the KZN Legislature — failed to have the committees reject the budgets. This, after the 41 government of provincial unity (GPU) MPLs from the IFP, ANC, DA and NFP had voted in favour of the budgets.
Had the MK Party succeeded in blocking the approval of the budgets by the portfolio committees, the departments would not have been able to access treasury funds to pay salaries and deliver services to the province’s residents.
DA KZN Legislature caucus chief whip Imran Keeka said the GPU did everything to ensure that the MK Party and its ally in the KZN Legislature, the EFF, did not succeed in their attempts to “block the flow” of provincial government funds.
Effectively, the GPU majority worked to block attempts by the official opposition and its EFF coalition partner to prevent the lawful flow of money to provincial departments and, ultimately, to the people of our province.
“Had they succeeded, services in KZN would have collapsed beyond recovery,” he said.
The MK Party’s obsession with collapsing the GPU, Keeka said, had rendered the party ineffective in its role as KZN Legislature’s official opposition.