Parliament, Wednesday, 06 June 2018 – The Standing Committee on Finance today unanimously condemned the nature of Mr Floyd Shivambu’s questioning of National Treasury Deputy Director-General (DDG), Mr Ismail Momoniat, at yesterday’s committee meeting.
The committee has persistently encouraged the National Treasury to ensure that its senior officials are more representative of South Africa’s racial and gender demographics. It has also consistently called for the entire financial sector to be more demographically representative.
The committee invites Mr Shivambu to engage further in these debates, but maintains that his crude attack on Mr Momoniat yesterday was unwarranted and inconsistent with the non-racial principles necessary for a transformative agenda that addresses race, class and gender inequalities in South Africa.
“Of course, you can’t have non-racialism without African leadership, but you also cannot exclude non-Africans simply on the basis of their race. What next? Are we going to dismiss the contribution of Ahmed Kathrada, Joe Slovo, Helen Joseph and Dulcie September simply on the grounds of race? We don’t have to compromise one iota on the need for African leadership, while accepting the role of outstanding public servants like Mr Momoniat,” said Mr Yunus Carrim, the Chairperson of the committee.
The committee has no evidence before it that Mr Momoniat is corrupt, as Mr Shivambu claims. In fact, the committee knows him to be an extremely hardworking, honest, skilled and experienced official who served both the anti-apartheid struggle and the new democracy selflessly. The committee reaffirmed its confidence in Mr Momoniat this morning.
The committee believes that Members of Parliament must guard against adding fuel to the growing racial polarisation occurring in the country, while being unapologetic about campaigning vigorously to reduce the huge racial and class divides.
Once again, the committee calls on the Minister and National Treasury to ensure greater racial and gender representivity in the department’s senior ranks, and to encourage a new generation to emerge that draws on the experience of veteran officials.
“All MPs, not just Mr Shivambu, should not abuse our right to speak freely in terms of the Powers, Privileges and Immunities Act. The committee repeats its concern that Members of Parliament can attack any member of the public as being corrupt without that person having the right of a reply within a committee, instead having to going through a torturous petition process via Parliament’s Secretary, which is hardly ever done,” said Mr Carrim.
The committee understands that although officials can reply within a committee to attacks on their integrity, they are restrained because they are not covered by the Immunities Act, and also because of the balance of power between them and Members of Parliament.
The committee has written to the Office of the Speaker about this before and will do so again.
Lastly, the committee has noted that Mr Shivambu was not in today’s meeting, unfortunately, but committee members agreed to issue a statement nonetheless.
ISSUED BY PARLIAMENTARY COMMUNICATION SERVICES ON BEHALF OF THE CHAIRPERSON OF THE STANDING COMMITTEE ON FINANCE, MR YUNUS CARRIM
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