National Assembly must be impeached not the Public Protector: Dr. Fikile Vilakazi-Alberts

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The People’s Court Must Defend the Office of the Public Protector, the ANC Majority in Parliament is Failing Us South Africa, Nithuleleni Mzansi umsamo wethu uBhidlika sijongile, Kutheni ePalamente? The National Assembly Must be Impeached not the Public Protector!

I want to start with the words of Audre Lorde, a feminist poet and writer who says, ‘Our silence will not protect us.’ I say thank you to all minority voices at the National Assembly who continue to speak out against all odds. We see you, even if you are 43 votes. It is unfortunate that Parliamentary oversight is a numbers game.

I now proceed to say that so many glitches remain unsaid and undone when the majority vote of the ANC at the National Assembly is entrusted to be the key decision-maker about pertinent issues that are pivotal to the rebuilding of our nation and a better life for all. One of those glitches is that we can forget about a better life for all under the ANC majority rule. It is not possible.

They are dishonest vampires who feed their power through the poverty and bleeding of the nation. They simply do not care about society, and their voting pattern in parliament is revealing.

The second glitch is that the ANC rallies through the ill-informed emotions of smaller political parties who are feeding the ANC’s vampirism through their vote, simply because they just want to keep a comfortable seat on the table of the National Assembly by continuously feeding the ANC vampire.

Ask yourself a question: how can we have only 43 members of Parliament vote against the impeachment of the public protector out of 400 members of the National Assembly, and the 43 happen to be the youngest members of the National Assembly in red overalls?

How is it possible that the youngest of our political leadership become the ones that are supercharged with zeal and responsibility to defend the office of the Public Protector when an ‘elder and parasitical politician’ remains blinded by loyalty, greed, and comfort? How is this possible when an ‘elder politician’ is expected to know and do better and has been entrusted with majority power yet fails dismally?

The third glitch is that the opposition political parties will never ever have an impact to undo the tyranny of the ANC majority at the National Assembly. We have seen this when they voted against the Phalaphala Independent Panel of Experts and now with the impeachment of the Public Protector, setting a very bad precedence for the role of oversight for Chapter 9 institutions and the National Assembly. Why are they silent and not voting in the majority for the implementation of the Zondo Commission Report to ensure all implicated members of parliament in the Zondo Commission Report are impeached? Why? Why is there selective impeachment of some and not others?

These are questions that we have been asking, even about the now dead silent ‘step aside policy’ of the ANC. Where has that gone to? It suddenly disappeared with the surfacing of Ramaphala Dollar scandal, which the Public Protector Busisiwe Mkhwebane was committed to investigate together with the CR17 Presidential campaign. I am just asking for clarity: is this not part of the job description of the Public Protector? If it is, we must ask South Africa, why was Advocate Busisiwe Mkhwebane impeached? Does an investigation on CR17 and Phalaphala constitute incompetence? Kanti, what is the job of the Public Protector? Our silences will not protect us!

We must defend the office of the Public Protector and the work of parliamentary oversight, otherwise, we are next! My reading of the situation shows us that the National Assembly is currently failing dismally to perform this task, and I think the National Assembly Must be impeached through a decision of the South Africa People’s Court of Justice, the People themselves.

Dr. Fikile Vilakazi-Alberts is a socio-political analyst, a scholar, a feminist, and a thinker.”