Race to pick MPs for Phala Phala impeachment committee

Added: 2026-05-22

[00:00:00]Back with you here on the Newsfeed PM and thanks for staying with us. Well, political parties have until the close of business today to submit the names of MPs to serve on Parliament's impeachment committee investigating the Phala Phala scandal. The 31-member committee is expected to revisit the Section 89 panel report into the theft at President Ramaphosa's Phala Phala game farm, which the president is currently challenging through a judicial review process. Well, for more on this, I'm joined now by uh of course As'ad Zulfiqar Goddard, who watches what comes out there of Parliament. As'ad, good to have you and thank you very much uh for uh coming through. I suppose this is a a key moment in this particular process as to who makes it to to that committee. How much sway, how much power does the ANC have to determine who makes up the 31-member unit?

[00:00:52]That's correct, Thabo. In fact, it's the first time that an impeachment committee has had to be set up, giving rise to Section 89 of the Constitution, which looks at the possible impeachment of the president or the sitting head of state.

[00:01:07]Um the ANC has nine members that it has to nominate to serve on that impeachment committee. Now, it will consist of 31 members in total, um but consisting of the 16 um political parties that are represented in the National Assembly.

[00:01:25]And so, that is the basis upon which these um parties have been submitting their names to the National Assembly speaker. Now, you'll remember that it was on the 13th of May this year that the National Assembly speaker um also spoke about or really uh spoke to political parties to give their names to um the National Assembly uh or to her office so that they could then process those particular names. Now, so far, there are about seven political parties that have mentioned who will be sitting on the impeachment committee. Now, the ANC has nine members that it has to submit or names that it has to to submit. Um at as things stand at the moment, the ANC hasn't mentioned who will form part of the impeachment committee. And of course, uh time is uh fast running out, Tubu.

[00:02:14]>> Is there any information as to what is behind that delay? I mean, are are you expecting that in the back rooms there are deals that are currently taking place? Well, it was a week ago when the National Assembly speaker gave that announcement for political parties to give um their names, but we suspect that there may be um some sort of consultations that are taking place regarding uh who will form part of that specific impeachment committee. You remember that this is also an impeachment committee that may lead to the possible impeachment of the president. So, I suspect that the ANC is also um essentially closing ranks um regarding who will form part of that committee.

[00:03:00]And you'll also remember that they had a special ANC NEC um meeting after the announcement as well of the president announcing that he would be taking the uh Section 89 independent panel report on review. Of course, that review has not yet been filed according to our understanding, um but the president is in the process of looking to file that particular review application.

[00:03:24]>> I know you got this information uh on your fingertips, so you'll help us with this. Walk us through the teeth of this committee. C- Can they actually subpoena documents, force testimony, or is it just political theater? Well, essentially, what will happen after the impeachment committee um or rather the names have been submitted is that the impeachment committee will then have its inaugural meeting. That meeting will also seek to elect a chairperson, um which is something that we also expect to be highly contested uh given the fact I mean we saw also um I think it was uh sometime earlier this year regarding the presidency committee that would be uh the oversight body that would look at what goes on in the presidency and there we also saw some contestation around who would serve as the chairperson of the that particular committee. We saw it with the ad hoc committee as well where there was that contestation. So there is somewhat of um an underlying belief amongst members often times that an ANC chairperson there shouldn't be an ANC chairperson to allow for the full ventilation of the investigations and also to um live up to the prescripts of true accountability.

[00:04:41]So what we're expecting to see now is that uh there will be after the submission of the names there will be the inaugural meeting as well as the election of the chairperson. But what's paramount also in this process is that in the impeachment committee there must be the establishment of its mandate as well of its terms of reference. That will give it a scope of uh within which the parameters within which it can operate. And you'll remember that the ATM is sort of laid the the genesis of this entire process because it was the one that filed um a complaint in the National Assembly but also listed four grounds upon which um the president had to respond or it accused the president of violating the constitution and the law. So that is the basis upon which the section 89 independent panel panel also um uh looked at the investigations into the president. So what comes out or what takes place within the impeachment committee also has to confine itself to those four grounds that were laid by the ATM. As'ad Kotwal, thank you very much.

[00:05:44]Appreciate it. Well, listening to that is a Professor Dirk Kotze uh from the University of South Africa. Prof, good to have you and thank you very much uh for your time. From