Hon House Chairperson, I speak against the background that the President, President J G Zuma, did not meet the legislative deadline for making his own declarations of financial interest. He did so only after being forced to do so by the Public Protector.
Also, my experience when tabling this legislative proposal to the Committee on Private Members' Legislative Proposals and Special Petitions left me wondering why the ANC members were so vociferously and vehemently opposed to such a proposal. The Majority Party Whip and an ANC member in the committee behaved in a particularly offensive manner. That they apologised at the next meeting serves to mitigate the conduct of the said members and I accepted their apology without reservation. However, this did nothing to address the defensive reasoning in their unilateral rejection of this legislative proposal.
In fact, I got the impression that any private member's Bill emanating from the opposition was doomed to fail at inception. This is not the intention of the committee on private members' Bills, and if the committee is allowed to become the graveyard of private members' Bills, then we must do away with the charade of having a committee that considers private members' legislation.
In the current legislation the President is expected to be the sole and final arbiter of his and his family's declarations of interest. My proposal aims to address the fact that the President is subject to no one but himself. In this regard, all other members of the executive are expected to make their declarations to a higher office. This serves to ensure that there is independent oversight of these declarations. The office of the President should not be beyond independent oversight, which actually operates as a safeguard against the abuse of office.
My proposals are therefore intended to protect the office of the President. Though I used the example of a long and growing public list of the current President's direct family members' benefiting from lucrative state and state-linked tenders and business opportunities, my legislative proposal is aimed at protecting the President and his family members by placing their business practices above question and reproach.
Yesterday afternoon, the President asserted in this House that it was discriminatory against politicians to suggest that they should not benefit from government infrastructure contracts. It is for this very reason, hon members, that checks and balances are necessary to prevent the trading of political influence for undue financial gain. This proposal recommends a remedy that proposes that the Auditor-General certifies the compliance of the President's family members who conduct business with the state. This spares the President the ignominy of continuous public jaundice and recrimination. It is my considered contention that the ANC members of this committee in this House protested too much. If they applied their minds objectively to this legislative proposal they would see that it is, in fact, in the interest of the President and his family, regardless of whether he or she is an ANC or a DA President. Thank you. [Applause.]