Do not undermine Parliament – MP Marwick warns Cabinet

Lobamba Lomdzala MP Marwick Khumalo has warned against undermining of Parliament by the executive.
The MP raised concerns that Parliament presiding officers, speaker and senate president as well as their deputies, were treated shabbily by being excluded from certain benefits such as allowances and cars.

He said regional administrators were treated better than Parliament presiding officers. He said this compromised the sacredness of Parliament stating that some Cabinet minister’s were greedy and using government vehicles yet they were assigned their own vehicles. This was during the debate of the ministry of finance first quarter performance report yesterday.

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Khumalo urged the minister of finance to get them out of this situation, where Parliament was being undermined.
He said they come from an era where the speaker and senate president were paid as deputy minister’s. He however said that there was a report which recommended that their salaries should be higher than that of ministers.
“Cabinet minister’s got jealous and said they should all be paid at the same scale.

We accepted that but now presiding officers are being treated shabbily and I am concerned about the sacredness of Parliament,” he said.
Khumalo added that regional administrators had personal cars yet the deputies of the presiding officers in Parliament did not. He clarified that he was not in favour of the current presiding officers and their deputies but the sanctity of Parliament.

“I have never seen such greediness as some ministers are using the Isuzu cars as their messenger cars,” he said. He added that as Parliament they were at liberty to make a provision for the procurement of cars for presiding officers deputies in the next budgeting cycle and called for Minister Neal Rijkenberg to address the issue.

Portfolio Committee Deputy Chairman Mafutseni MP Sabelo Mtetwa called for the recall of all the Isuzu vehicles assigned to ministers before the procurement of the Toyota cars they were assigned.
He said the cars could be used by ministries instead of being used as messenger cars by ministers.
Minister Rijkenberg assured that he would look into the matter and provide a detailed response in writing.

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