By Lehlohonolo Lehana.
National Assembly Speaker Nosiviwe Mapisa-Nqakula has declined the African Transformation Movement’s (ATM) request for a secret ballot on Phala Phala report.
ATM President Vuyo Zungula wrote to Mapisa-Nqakula last week requesting that she consider allowing MPs to vote through a secret ballot following the debate on the report.
Several opposition parties have called on President Cyril Ramaphosa to resign after the panel found that he may have breached the Constitution during and after the theft of foreign currency from his farm in 2020.
Mapisa-Nqakula wrote back to the ATM justifying her decision to reject the secret ballot request.
“A closed voting procedure will deprive the citizens of identifying the positions of their representatives across party lines and that this may facilitate the possibility of corruption aimed at influencing members to vote in a manner where they will be shielded from accountability to the people they represent for the exercise of their constitutional duty,” she said.
“This includes the foundational constitutional principle of ‘openness’, as set out in section 1(d) of the constitution which guides SA democratic order.”
The constitutional requirement, as set out in section 59(1)(b), that the National Assembly must conduct its proceedings in an open manner, was also an important consideration in this case, she said.
These constitutional imperatives were equally compelling for the National Assembly to uphold when considered against her assessment of the prevailing political atmosphere in the country at present, Mapisa-Nqakula said.
“An open and transparent procedure followed by the assembly to exercise this important decision on the section 89 independent panel report can only bring about public trust and confidence in the assembly and our democratic dispensation.”