The Democratic Alliance (DA) announced on Wednesday it will immediately write to House chairperson Cedric Frolick to investigate and act against Portfolio Committee on Defence and Military Veterans chairperson Dakota Legoete’s actions in attempting to reschedule and suddenly postpone a meeting on the South African National Defence Force (SANDF).

The meeting was scheduled to take place on Wednesday.

DA spokesperson on Defence & Military Veterans Chris Hattingh condemned Legoete’s actions, pointing out that this was done without any consultation or input from members of the committee.

Last week, SANDF members were killed during combat and several others were injured.

They were stationed in the DRC as part of Southern African Development Community and the UN peacekeeping deployments and were engaged in intense combat over two days with the M23 rebel group near Goma, the provincial capital of the eastern DRC.

Following the incident, the Joint Standing Committee on Defence announced that owing to the “seriousness” of the matter, the committee would urgently schedule a meeting to get a full briefing on the incident as well as the overall status of the deployment.

“It is important that we get a full briefing from the Minister, the Acting Secretary of Defence and the Chief of the SANDF not only on the incident but also on the status of the mission and the availably of adequate equipment for SANDF members deployed in DRC and in any mission,” said committee co-chairperson Phiroane Phala.

Hattingh claimed that over the last few days, Legoete had “wilfully stifled” the committee in its constitutionally protected oversight role.   

“On Monday, the chairperson first attempted to reschedule the meeting to a later date, ironically because of the ongoing crisis in the DRC – the very item which members of the committee were intending to raise. Faced with scathing backlash from members of his committee, across parties, the meeting was kept on the books.

“In his latest stunt, just last night, the chairperson circulated a WhatsApp message to the committee members, a mere 12 hours before the meeting was scheduled to start, informing them that he has again dropped the long-scheduled engagement – this time postponing the meeting to next week. With the meeting intended to be an in-person event, most of the committee members were already making their way to parliamentary grounds when they received word of the chairperson’s unilateral move,” explained Hattingh.

He also pointed to silence from Minister of Defence and Military Veterans Angie Motshekga, as well as President Cyril Ramaphosa. Parties are urging the President to address the nation on this matter.

“With our troops surrounded in a hot conflict zone, ill-equipped and unprepared for their mission and lacking critical support, the chairperson’s brazen attempts at gagging his committee in their oversight duties are damaging the democratic fabric that holds Parliament together,” he said.  

He said the chairperson’s conduct was nothing short of disgraceful, pointing to Parliament’s constitutional obligation to have oversight over executive actions.

“…by refusing members of Parliament the opportunity to scrutinise executive conduct in the middle of a crisis such as this is grossly irresponsible, smacks of political interference with Parliamentary business, and displays a reckless disregard for parliamentary rights and privileges,” he added.