A row broke out in Parliament’s defence committee on Friday after an ANC MP said MPs could not question President Cyril Ramaphosa’s decision to send soldiers into KwaZulu-Natal.
ANC MP Tshilidzi Bethuel Munyai said the committee needed a workshop on the separation of powers.
“I welcome the deployment by the Commander-in-Chief, His Excellency the President, and the work of the Minister to ensure that the SANDF is deployed to support the SAPS as outlined in the Constitution. Honourable Chair, I will say this over and over. My recommendation to the Joint Standing Committee on Defence is, firstly, that we invite the Public Sector Unit in Parliament to run a workshop on oversight models and tools and the separation of powers, because we cannot question the deployment, and I don’t think the deployment by the Commander-in-Chief is under question.
“I think the issue of the delay is an administrative issue, because when the letter is written by the President, it must go through the letter protocol and be delivered to the National Assembly and the NCOP. I think, Chair, we need to welcome the deployment. The deployment is not happening out of context. It’s informed by a national security threat and developments in the country that can undermine law and order. Those decisions are not under question, Chairperson. We have an obligation to support the decision taken by the Commander-in-Chief, and we support this operation being successful. For me, I am very excited that the government is responsive, in the sense that when a threat arises, such a deployment will happen. So we welcome this deployment and we wish Operation Prosper greater success,” Munyai said.
EFF MP Carl Niehaus hit back. He mocked Munyai as the committee’s “in-house praise singer ”.
“I think it is very important that we do not allow misconceptions about the powers and abilities of this Joint Standing Committee on Defence with regard to how we can respond to letters of deployment by the President. We have been told by our in-house praise singer, the Honourable Munyai, that we actually have no powers and should simply accept this presentation and this letter. That is incorrect,” said Niehaus.
Munyai objected. “I’m calling order, Honourable, because I’m not a praise singer. If I say something that supports the cause of what is being done by the department, that does not make one a praise singer,” Munyai said.
Niehaus replied: “Should I label him something different here? Which he won’t appreciate.”
The chair stepped in. “We have our names and surnames in this committee. Let us not invent new names, because one would respond negatively. Let’s refrain from calling honourable members funny names like praise singer.”
Asked to withdraw, Niehaus refused.
“Honourable Chair, I’ve not insulted anyone. I was just stating a fact. I’m not prepared to withdraw.”
Another member eventually asked the committee to move on, and the chair agreed to “bury that”.
Niehaus finished his point. “In terms of our constitutional position in this committee, we have the right even to decide not to accept a letter of deployment from the President. Perhaps the Honourable Munyai is not aware of the reality.
“We simply need all of us, including the Honourable Munyai, to be apprised of what the Constitution says about our rights. Our researchers presented a document to us on the process we have to follow in dealing with these letters of deployment from the President. I suggest that the document be presented to us again, or sent to us, so that the Honourable Munyai himself can also be apprised of the constitutional facts that informed the process we agreed on. There is no way we can accept a position that we as a committee must simply rubber-stamp these letters. The Constitution, both the final Constitution of 1996 and the applicable clauses of the interim Constitution of 1993, grants us the authority and powers also to reject letters of deployment. We are not a rubber stamp. That is the only important point I’m making, Chair. We must not be reduced to something that cannot do its job,” he said.
DA MP Emma Powell backed him: “This committee is not a rubber-stamping forum.”
At the end of the meeting, it was Niehaus who proposed that the committee adopt its report. The report notes the deployment and does not recommend that Parliament change or end it.