Michael Beaumont, national chairperson of ActionSA, said the GNU partners must now rise to the occasion.
Image: Henk Kruger / Independent Newspapers
ActionSA has described the Phala Phala ruling, handed down by the Constitutional Court on Friday, as a victory for the South African people and for accountability.
“This ruling has determined that the rule used by the National Assembly to deny the investigation report into Phala Phala being referred to the impeachment committee was invalid, and thus the vote must be deemed invalid,” ActionSA national chairperson Michael Beaumont said after the judgment was delivered.
Ahead of the ruling, he described the ConCourt process as a great moment for the South African people.
“We are really excited that, should this be sent back to the South African Parliament again, it will be in a Parliament where the ANC no longer enjoys a majority, and the South African people will get to see whether the political parties who have joined this GNU still agree to the principles they held in 2022, or whether those principles have changed now that they are sitting in blue-light vehicles,” Beaumont told SABC News.
“We are really concerned about how government institutions in this country, one after the other, fell over themselves to vindicate the president for having millions of rands in foreign currency in his couch. We really think that Parliament was a vital institution that needed to act better for the South African people,” he added.
Beaumont also criticised the Democratic Alliance for its silence on Phala Phala and other matters, such as the IPID investigation, since joining the Government of National Unity.
ActionSA said its parliamentary team was ready to participate in the process that unfolds and to provide leadership from the opposition benches. The party commended the political parties that refused to give up as various institutions allegedly freed the president from accountability.
“Now is the time for parties in the GNU, who have gone silent on Phala Phala since entering government, to demonstrate whether they will act for South Africans or for themselves,” Beaumont said in a statement issued to the media.
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