Cape Town - A routine briefing to the provincial legislature’s Standing Committee on the Premier and Constitutional Matters by the Department of Home Affairs (DHA) became the stage for a dispute over whether MPs should be allowed to “gatecrash” and ask questions alongside committee members.
Trouble began when committee member and leader of the opposition Cameron Dugmore (ANC) raised a point of order about the appropriateness of DA parliamentary Home Affairs spokesperson Angel Khanyile being treated as a member of the committee instead of as a guest and ordinary member of the public.
Dugmore said it was Khanyile’s participation in the committee where chairperson Christopher Fry allowed her to ask the DHA officials a series of questions was unprecedented and asked him to make a ruling.
Committee member Deidré Baartman (DA) said there was nothing unusual about MPs attending legislature committee meetings and that as there were no members of the public, who are sometimes allowed to ask questions after the committee had exhausted their, Khanyile should be treated as a guest.
ANC Chief Whip Pat Lekker, who attended the briefing virtually, said allowing Khanyile to ask questions before committee members had exhausted their queries was against the rules of the legislature.
Making his ruling on the issue Fry had said he was treating Khanyile as a member of the public, even though she was an MP.
“Going forward, though, I will be mindful of the fact that if we have considerable amount of members of the public who happen to be in place, then the discussion will be that we cross that bridge when we get there.”
During the briefing DHA Acting Provincial Manager Ricardo Abrams said that during the DHA High Impact Outreach programme for 2022/2023 financial year, two Immigration Law Enforcement Operations executed within the Bergrivier Local Municipality.
During one of these, an in loco inspection of the Sandvliet Farm on February 22, where 18 undocumented foreigners were detained for deportation and one employer was charged with contravening the Immigration Act.
Abrams said they also carried out an in loco law enforcement inspection of spaza shops in Piketberg township on February 24, during which three undocumented foreigners were detained for deportation.
Meanwhile, with regard to the availability of mobile home affairs services, Abrams told the committee that there were 13 mobile units across the province.
Of these, four were in the Cape Metro. One each in Nyanga and Wynberg and two more in the CBD.
He said while the two in Nyanga and Wynberg were fully operational, the two in the CBD were not, and blamed this on electricity issues.
There are two each in the Cape Winelands, Central Karoo and the Garden Route and one each in Overberg and the West Coast.
He also said 10 new Mobile Units were in the process of being procured for the 2023/2024 financial year and would be allocated as per service delivery demand.
This meant there would be one in Worcester, three in Malmesbury, one each in Vredendal, Vredenburg, George and Paarl and two in Oudtshoorn.