DA wants roll-call voting system for Phala Phala report consideration

The DA wants parliament to use a roll-call system when MPs vote to consider the Phala Phala report, compiled by an independent panel to determine whether President Cyril Ramaphosa has a case to answer.

DA chief whip Siviwe Gwarube has written to National Assembly speaker Nosiviwe Mapisa-Nqakula to request that every MP present at Tuesday’s sitting, whether in person or online, be accounted for.

LISTEN | Phala phala report and its significance

The procedure requires each MP to answer with a “yes” or “no” when called upon.

“It is my considered view that the current system of voting used to streamline the business of plenaries, whereby political parties’ votes are recorded by their respective whips, erodes public representatives’ rights to cast an individual vote, arguably to the detriment of the ideals of representative and participatory democracy,” said Gwarube.

Given the public interest in the report and the precedent-setting work of the panel, “it is therefore imperative that when we consider this report on December 6 we are allowed to cast our votes manually according to a roll-call vote to allow each of the 400 public representatives in the assembly to voice his or her vote”, she said.

Earlier on Thursday, Mapisa-Nqakula said the assembly would use the normal voting process, where a party whip records votes on behalf of the party's MPs, unless a request to vote differently is made.

“In parliament we vote the way we do, the normal process. However, once a MP makes a proposal other than the processes we are currently following, then the speaker has an obligation to look into that matter if there are reasons provided, consider and take a decision,” she said.

If agreed to, it will not be the first time MPs follow the roll-call system. It was used to vote in the DA’s motion of no confidence in Ramaphosa’s cabinet in March.

Meanwhile, retired chief justice Sandile Ngcobo, chair of the section 89 panel that investigated whether Ramaphosa has a case to answer, defended the process followed by the panel in doing its work.

He said it was guided by prescribed rules of procedure which required focus on the information MPs presented and its members could not pick and choose who to call or ask for further information.

He described the task as complex. “If you read this [report] you will understand the complexity of the task that was at hand, but the research required was very limited and most of it was done by ourselves,” said Ngcobo.

He said the panel requested additional time from Mapisa-Nqakula “because when the clock started ticking, we still had to go through information submitted”.

The panel received information from the ATM, EFF and UDM, and sent it to Ramaphosa for his response, Ngcobo said.

The former chief justice also responded to criticism of the probe, saying he was perturbed when someone on TV said if the panel did not call the Hawks, it would not have done its job.

“Let me make it quite clear and firmly: that’s not our job. Our job was to interrogate the information that members of the assembly saw fit to present to us ... That’s what the rules made by the National Assembly required us to do. We could not go beyond that. It is not in my blood to disregard the law.”

Ngcobo handed the report to Mapisa-Nqakula on Wednesday.

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