R-word flung about in legislature

Racism took centre stage at the Western Cape Provincial Legislature yesterday as members debated Premier Helen Zille's state of the province address (Sopa).

Unlike last Friday's sitting, at which Zille was prevented from delivering her Sopa, there were no disruptions.

ANC chief whip Pierre Uys and his deputy, Siyazi Tyatyam, were not in the House after they were both suspended for two days after last week's fracas.

ANC leader Marius Fransman started the debate by accusing Zille of using the constitution in an exclusive way.

"You are sitting with a provincial government led by a premier who has introduced racial terminology when she speaks about people from outside - 'refugees'," said Fransman. "When she says 'yes we have a problem in health, but guess what? It's those refugees from somewhere'."

Zille stood up and asked the Speaker what should be done with a speaker - referring to Fransman - who repeatedly made misleading statements without evidence.

The DA's Lorraine Botha accused the ANC government nationally of pushing employment equity regulations which she said would block coloured people in the province and the Northern Cape from being promoted.

"The ANC then took it a step further and the national director-general of labour and ANC government spokesperson at the time, Jimmy Manyi, said that the Western Cape has too many coloured people and they should move elsewhere," she said.

"How is the rhetoric any different from that of apartheid?"

Economic Freedom Fighters MPL Nazier Paulsen said Zille paid lip service to eradicating racism.

"We must do more than just paying lip service to such an evil because it is even happening to your own department, premier, where an official has been reported for referring to a service provider in the ugliest of racial terms."

ANC MPL Cameron Dugmore said the notion of an equal opportunity society had failed in the province.

"The premier's own personal attitude and racial bias, illustrated by her statements in this House and on Twitter and elsewhere in the public domain, has actually emboldened racists in the Western Cape," said Dugmore.

But DA MPL Beverly Schäfer, accused the ANC of destabilising already fragile communities.

"We know that while the ANC is busy radicalising land reform, the people of the country are suffering," said Schäfer.