SONA Debate, Day 2: ANC hits back, House gets rowdy

Punctuated by heckling, insult trading and truckloads of rhetoric, Tuesday 19 February saw the second day of the two-day State of the Nation (SONA) debates descend into a rather raucous state of affairs. Amid the now hackneyed use of the “good news” refrain, laundry lists of national government policy successes and failures as headlined by the ANC and opposition members respectively, the Speakers of the House had to call the National Assembly to order on several occasions.

Not long after stepping up to the podium, Minister of Public Service and Administration, Lindiwe Sisulu, said that despite the media hype over the weekend she had expected the opposition to bring out the big guns, but "I didn't even see a water pistol from these guys". She went on to label the Democratic Alliance “a damp squib of a party” as well as taking a swipe at the ineffectiveness of COPE as a viable opposition party.

Sisulu went on to say with regards to legal rights and auditing, South Africa is “number one in the world” and that our banking systems are number two in the world. She also boldly declared that the ANC-ruled government was not just a good story, but an “amazing story to tell” that deserved them the awarding of an A+ mark for their efforts.

Sisulu added that when South Africa hosted the World Cup despite nay saying from the DA and others, South Africa did such a spectacular job that even “Bafana Bafana rose to the occasion” making “the Members on my left the real bunch of losers”, indirectly referencing Sports Minister Fikile Mbalula’s recent controversial remarks on our national soccer teams poor performance in The Orange African Nations Championship, prompting a smile from Mbalula sitting a few seats away.

Minister Sisulu spent much of the remainder of her speech being heckled, with her twice telling the DA to “shut up”. This in turn prompted her brother, Speaker of the House, Max Sisulu to rule her out of out of order, resulting in Minister Sisulu begrudgingly agreeing to withdraw her cusses.

Sisulu told the National Assembly that services and resources are only delivered to the privileged in the Western Cape, adding that the Western Cape had spent R10.3 billion on consultants which was “nothing short of scandalous”.

More pot shots were fired the opposition’s way when Minister of Public Enterprises, Malusi Gigaba, referring to the DA as “the Desperate Alliance”, contested the opposition’s claims of a strong service delivery record, alleging that an ANC study showed that the DA had under spent by 30% in the Western Cape.

Earlier, the DA’s Wilmot James had said that between 2009 and 2013 the Western Cape had to spend millions fixing RDP houses built by the ANC.

However it wasn’t the ANC members alone that saw the bearing of political fangs. Earlier, DA's Diane Kohler-Barnard’s hard-hitting speech tore into the escalation of police brutality - from the shooting of Andries Tatane, to the killing of miners in Marikana. She said that the situation had spiralled out of control due to a crisis in leadership from Commissioners Bheki Cele and Riah Phiyega, as well as Police Minister, Nathi Mthethwa. Kohler-Barnard went on to tell President Zuma that if he was serious about fighting corruption “you would hand the spy tapes to the DA”.

Not long after, ANC MP Johnny de Lange raised a point of order, requesting the House rule against the DA referring to President Zuma merely as “Zuma”, arguing that is unparliamentary not to refer to his title.

Kohler-Barnard ended her speech by saying that our “criminal justice system is broken. South Africa has had enough. They deserve a much better story”.

Later, Police Portfolio Committee Chairperson, Annalize van Wyk (ANC), said that the DA had double standards and was hardly doing a good job to curb crime in the province they controlled considering that more murders took place in Cape Town than Joburg and Pretoria combined. van Wyk went on to list a number of improvements in the policing of crime, including alluding to the fact that “for the first time in South Africa we will now be able to use DNA to catch criminals.”

Kicking off the debate earlier, Health Minister, Aaron Motsoaledi, praised President Zuma for the National Development Plan and general improvement in health care, adding that the country has "turned the corner" on HIV/Aids under his leadership.

Motsoaledi then told the National Assembly that his department would be implementing a policy that would soon be seeing Grade 4 girls administered with the Human Papilloma Virus (HPV) vaccine, as well as making free contraception via sub-dermal implants more accessible in order to curb diseases and teenage pregnancy respectively.

Swinging from adversarial one minute to the raucous the next, the mood in Parliament took a sombre turn when the IFP’s Mario Oriani-Ambrosini took to the podium.

Looking pale and drawn, Oriani-Ambrosini’s four-minute speech was filled with emotional references to his personal battle against cancer and his tabling of a new “simple bill” called the Medical Innovation Bill, to legalise marijuana for medical purposes. He added that it would be a crime against humanity not to decriminalise the medical use of marijuana, as the drug helped keep him alive. In a show of support Orinai-Ambrosini’s wife and children were sitting in the Members’ gallery. When the Speaker gently cautioned that Oriani-Ambrosini was out of time, Members across the party spectrum whispered “shhhh” in order to give the IFP stalwart time to approach President Zuma and personally hand over the Bill.

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