'No difference between Zuma's nine wasted years and current dispensation': Steenhuisen

24 March 2023 - 07:00
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DA leader John Steenhuisen has taken aim at President Cyril Ramaphosa. File photo.
DA leader John Steenhuisen has taken aim at President Cyril Ramaphosa. File photo.
Image: Freddy Mavunda

DA leader John Steenhuisen says there's no difference between former president Jacob Zuma's “nine wasted years” and his successor President Cyril Ramaphosa's current dispensation.

Steenhuisen was speaking in the National Assembly ahead of a vote to establish an ad hoc committee to investigate allegations of misconduct against Ramaphosa on his Phala Phala farm.

“There is no difference between Zuma's nine wasted years and the current dispensation. Then it was Nkandla, now it’s Phala Phala. Then it was fire pools and cattle kraals, now it's couches stuffed with dollars. Then it was President Jacob Zuma, now it’s President Cyril Ramaphosa,” he said.

According to Steenhuisen, history is repeating itself and the ANC is shielded a sitting president from accountability.

“Not just any president — a man who promised to clean up and clean out. Yet here South Africa sits, with another compromised ANC head of state,” he said

Only an ad hoc committee with the powers set out in rule 167 can get to the bottom of allegations of misconduct at Phala Phala, said Steenhuisen.

“The truth will come out on Phala Phala — no matter how hard the ANC tries to hold back the tide. And yes, there will come a day of reckoning for each member of the National Assembly to yet again account for what you did when your name was called,” he said.

“So I urge you to support this motion. But at the end of the day, the one thing that every South African must remember is this: an innocent man should never be afraid of the truth — and an innocent president should never be afraid of parliament.”

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