ANC is protecting Ramaphosa from accounting to Parliament on #Jetgate

The President’s call for a Joint Sitting of Parliament next week Thursday, is a clear, last-minute attempt on Ramaphosa’s part to avoid questions and accountability on the recent diplomatic trip to Zimbabwe by an ANC delegation.

The National Council of Provinces (NCOP) had, for over the past month, an oral question session with the President scheduled for Thursday, 15 October.

It seems that only once the President and the ANC had seen the published question paper with a question from the Democratic Alliance (DA) on #Jetgate, the Presidency and Parliament colluded to stall the oral question session.

The Presiding Officers of Parliament accepted the President’s call for a Joint Sitting while ignoring the clear conflict the Joint Sitting would have on the Parliament programme.

When I asked the Chief Whip of the NCOP during a Whippery meeting on Friday of the new date for the oral question session with the President, there was no definitive answer. Despite the DA suggesting other reasonable days and times of the same week for the Joint Sitting, the ANC would not accept any of them.

It is clear that the ANC are closing ranks to prevent the truth of #Jetgate from coming out as both the Ramaphosa and Magashule factions are implicated in this quagmire.

It is further obvious that Ramaphosa does not wish to be confronted with another scandal of his administration in an oral question session. One is reminded of the time he lied to Parliament two years ago about his son’s involvement with Bosasa.

The Joint Sitting is nothing less than a way to prevent the President from accountability, and allow him to grandstand on plans to supposedly save the South African economy that was broken by no one except the ANC national government from their disastrous, illogical lockdown.

The DA will therefore be writing to the President’s office to request a copy of his schedule for next week to ascertain whether if Ramaphosa is really too busy to have both a Joint Sitting and oral question session within the same week.

The truth will come out, whether the ANC and Ramaphosa like it or not.