Staff Reporter.
National Assembly speaker Thandi Modise has agreed to the United Democratic Movement’s (UDM) request to change how the committee handling Public Protector Busisiwe Mkwhebane’s impeachment will vote.
This after Parliament announced in April the composition of 26 MPs who would serve on the committee conducting the inquiry into Mkwhebane’s fitness to hold office.
Only 11 MPs from the ANC, DA, EFF, IFP, and FF Plus would have been voting members of the committee, while the remaining 15 would be non-voting members, including the UDM.
The UDM complained about this, and wanted all members of the committee to have equal voting rights, instead of a weighted voting system.
The committee is called a Section 194 committee, and deals with the removal of heads of Chapter 9 institutions like the Public Protector.
In March, MPs in the National Assembly voted to impeach Mkhwebane after an independent panel that found sufficient prima facie evidence of incompetence and misconduct on her part and recommended the inquiry.
This followed a report by an independent review panel that recommended a parliamentary inquiry into the public protector’s fitness to hold office.
The panel was established by National Assembly speaker Thandi Modise last year after the Democratic Alliance (DA) tabled a motion for Mkhwebane’s removal from office.
The panel found substantial information that constitutes prima facie evidence of incompetence and misconduct against the public protector. It comprised retired Constitutional Court judge Bess Nkabinde, advocate Dumisa Ntsebeza and advocate Johan de Waal.
The Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF), the African Transformation Movement, the United Democratic Movement and Al Jama-ah voted against the inquiry. The votes were 275 to 40, with one abstention.