Hurry! You have 4 seconds...

2007-07-30 18:11

Johannesburg - Opposition parties in the Johannesburg city council are furious at the ruling ANC limiting their speaking time to four seconds per councillor.

Parties objecting on Monday included the Democratic Alliance, Inkatha Freedom Party, Independent Democrats, African Christian Democratic Party, and the Pan Africanist Congress of Azania.

In a statement, the parties quoted the ANC's Chief Whip in the council, Bafana Sithole, saying in a rules committee meeting: "If a party cannot say what they want to say in eight seconds it is not worth saying".

The DA's Manny de Freitas said: "This is an unprecedented move. Opposition parties... are united in their resolve to oppose the ANC in its bid to enforce an absurd process to effectively prevent freedom of speech."

Opposition parties 'gagged'

He said a report was tabled at a council meeting this month, the effect of which was to gag all opposition parties.

"This has been done under the guise of proportional speaking time in council meetings proportional to parties' numerical representation in the chamber."

The calculation was done on the basis of four seconds per councillor.

"All opposition parties are opposing this clamp-down on freedom of speech."

The resolution passed by council ensures that opposition parties will collectively have only four minutes to speak while the ANC will have 11 minutes.

"This is clearly out of line with the purported proportional nature of the speaking time allocation," said De Freitas.

- SAPA