Mbete denies ANC favouritism in Parliament

“All the Speaker or any presiding officer does is to maintain order and make sure there are orderly proceedings,” she said during a meeting of Parliament's rules committee late yesterday.

She was replying to a previous request by the DA that she recuse herself as Speaker because she was also African National Congress chairperson.

Also read: EFF forcibly removed from Parliament again

The DA believed she could not be impartial or help herself from taking issues regarding the ANC personally.

There was nothing personal in how she handled the Public Protector's report on President Jacob Zuma's home in Nkandla, she retorted.

"In fact, the contrary is the truth.”

She was not involved in voting, she said, referring to Parliament's decision that Zuma did not have to repay any money for five of the upgrades to his Nkandla homestead.

Mbete said she was only named in court papers as the person who had to give permission for the papers to be served.

"Not because I did anything directly," she said.

ANC chief whip Jackson Mthembu defended Mbete, saying she did not hold MPs hands and tell them how to vote.

But, there was a party line.

"We have a party line, there is no question about it," he said, but added that it was not Mbete's job to tell people how to vote.

“We are from Luthuli House, that's where our headquarters is. No question about it. But if a Speaker is elected in the manner that our Constitution dictates, there is no way we can recuse the Speaker."

(File photo: Gallo Images)