This week the Nkandla Ad Hoc Committee, which has degenerated into an ANC talk shop, is expected to deliberate on a first draft of its report, after creating the impression they have considered the various investigative reports into the R246 million upgrades to the president’s private residence.

In an unprecedented move by the Committee, the need to call President Jacob Zuma, Public Protector Adv. Thuli Madonsela, and others to appear before the Committee was rejected by the ANC.

This move flies in the face of the Rules of Parliament, which state that Committees have the authority to “summon any person to appear before it to give evidence on oath or affirmation, or produce documents.”

It is our view, as opposition parties, that the Committee was in dereliction of its duty by not calling for the most relevant parties to appear before the Committee; and therefore without these representations, the work of the Committee will forever remain incomplete.

It is for this reason, chiefly that as opposition parties, that we could no longer participate in a process and parliamentary forum, which chose not to fully apply itself in holding the Executive accountable and upholding the Constitution and the Rules of Parliament.

Furthermore, the Democratic Alliance, with the support of other Opposition Parties, will be producing a Minority Report so that the voice of the Opposition is heard before Parliament, and cannot be shut out by the ANC.

We are also of the view that reports by bodies like the Special Investigating Unit (SIU) cannot be viewed with the same gravitas as that of the Public Protector, which is “independent, and subject only to the Constitution and the law”, as ascribed by the Constitution – the supreme law of the Republic.

The remainder of the Committee, essentially a study group of the ANC, has chosen to negate the Public Protector, and in the process the Constitution has been trampled on by the boots of ANC MPs led by Mathole Motshekga.

The Opposition Parties did not walk out of the Nkandla Ad Hoc Committee because we did not get our way. Our views were not acknowledged, and more tragically, the ANC used its majority to essentially vandalise the Constitution so as to reach a predetermined outcome, which aims to absolve President Zuma and lay blame on public servants, who worked to please the president.

If, as a nation, we are to move forward from this dark period of political posturing and, in my view, a constitutional breaking point, President Zuma needs to comply with the remedial action steps of the Secure in Comfort report; and that should be the key recommendation that the Nkandla Ad Hoc Committee makes to Parliament. Indeed, it is the only correct way forward for South Africa.

The duty that seized the Committee was to put partisan politics aside and put the interests of the country first. The ANC failed in this duty, and as such opposition parties led in this regard. Opposition parties were able to put politics one side, and come together to defend the Constitution and the interests of South Africa and its people.

Politics need not always be about politics, especially when the guiding light, which the ANC refuses to follow, so brightly leads us to follow the Constitution.

If we are willing to forgo the values of the Constitution, because it does not fit the ANC agenda, then we are in fact walking backwards, and the hard-earned gains of the last 20 years will slowly slip away.

We must understand that democracies do not fall apart over night, or as the result of a single incident. Democracies fall apart slowly, sometimes without notice, but there comes a time, with hindsight, that we see the error of our ways.

Small incidents crescendo until we reach a peak that is difficult to descend from.

The fight to defend the Constitution and ensure accountability is not and will not be an easy one, but it is a fight which we have no choice but to engage in. This is not for my sake, but for the sake of 52 million South Africans, and future generations.

The Nkandla Ad Hoc Committee report, by the ANC members who remain, will embody the most pointed example of dereliction of the constitutional duty for parliament to hold the executive to account.

Anything but compliance with the Public Protector will say to South Africa that the ANC in Parliament condones and excuses corruption and misuse of state resources, by the executive.

But then, it is the president himself who proclaimed that corruption is a “Western paradigm” without a place in South Africa after all. DM