Mbete loses it again

Speaker of Parliament Baleka Mbete lost control of the National Assembly again yesterday, failing to enforce the House's rules on the proposing of motions.

She refused to allow members of Julius Malema's Economic Freedom Fighters to speak.

It took just 14 minutes for chaos to descend on the House and only about 25 for the first member of the EFF to be suspended for disorderly conduct in a session characterised by shouted contention.

The EFF brought a motion without notice, claiming that there would be a conflict of interest if the Presidency were to receive for consideration the report of the Farlam Commission of Inquirybecause Deputy President Cyril Ramaphosa was a Lonmin shareholder at the time of the Marikana massacre. Lonmim was the platinum mining house against which the slain union members were striking.

After the EFF had read its motion, Mbete declared that there had been a mistake in the "processing" of motions and that the EFF's motion "was not supposed to be put in".

When EFF members rose to object, saying it was not Mbete's responsibility to decide on the merits of motions, she refused to recognise them.

She ordered EFF MP Andile Mngxitama to leave the house at least 10 times and eventually called on the sergeant-at-arms "to perform your duties".

But Mngxitama steadfastly remained in his seat.

This was the second time that Mbete has lost control of the House. The first was on August 21 when police were called in to remove EFF members who werte chanting at President Jacob Zuma: "Pay back the money [spent on the 'security upgrading' of his Nkandla home]."

All 20 members of the parliamentary EFF have been found guilty of contravening the rules of parliament by its powers and privileges committee.

Zuma has not returned to the National Assembly since the August furore.

At the time of yesterday's confrontation in the House he was answering questions in the National Council of Provinces.

The DA's Mike Waters attempted to calm the situation by clarifying the new rules on motions proposed without notice. He said they allowed statements to be read "irrespective of the content".

Shouts of "You have a problem with the EFF" and "You collapsed the House" rang out from the EFF benches. EFF MPs challenged Mbete to call the police.

EFF chief of staff Floyd Shivambu , on being ordered to sit or be expelled, retorted: "Until such time as you recognise me, Mngxitama goes nowhere."

Unable to remove Mngxitama, Mbete ordered that he be suspended for five days.