Zille angers ANC again

2009-05-25 06:11

Cape Town - Western Cape Premier Helen Zille has defended her decision, amid angry protest from the ANC, to hold her opening address in legislature before President Jacob Zuma delivers his first state of the nation address.

Zille's spokesperson Robert Macdonald said on Monday she would deliver her speech on Friday because the legislature needed to start work as soon as possible to meet an end of June deadline to adopt its budget.

"It is scheduled for the 29th because we have a budget to complete.

"We are not trying to be harsh but the (provincial) parliament needs to open so that we can get committees to go through the content of the budget."

Macdonald said Zille's speech would set up a policy blueprint for the committees to follow in their work.

ANC wants Zille speech postponed

The ANC's chief whip in the Western Cape legislature, Max Ozinsky, wrote to the speaker demanding that Zille's speech, which will precede Zuma's state of the address by four days, be moved to a later date.

"It is convention and tradition that premiers make their state of the province addresses after the president delivers his state of the nation address, so that they may respond to the national policy framework and direction provided by the president.

"It would seem that this programme has been insisted on by the premier, so that she can use her reply to the debate to respond to the president's address, without giving other parties this opportunity, as they will have spoken in the legislature debate before the president's address."

Macdonald said however that there was nothing in the Constitution that obliged the premier to wait until after Zuma's June 3 state of the nation address.

DA 'needs to change budget'

He said the Democratic Alliance-controlled legislature was perhaps more pressed for time than those in other provinces, because it needed to review a budget drafted by the former ANC government.

"We are a new government. In other provinces an ANC government is handing over to an ANC government. But we want to review and change the budget to bring it in line with our policies."

Sources in the legislature said the timing of the speech would add to tension between the parties which has soared since Zille won an outright majority in the Western Cape in April.

The ANC and its allies have criticised the premier for appointing only male MECs, and she has in turn accused Zuma of being a womaniser who put his wives at risk of contracting HIV.

ANC secretary general Gwede Mantashe said last week the DA had been denied a chance to chair any of Parliament's portfolio committees because the party was "hostile".
Zille has in the meanwhile accused the ANC of transferring provincial land to the national authorities on the eve of the elections. Sapa
 

- SAPA