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I have today asked the Chief Whip of the DA to raise the issue of in-camera use for Parliamentary meetings with the Speaker of the National Assembly Ms Baleka Mbete and ask that requests for portfolio committee meetings to be held in camera be granted only in exceptional, rather than routine, circumstances in the interest of transparency.

On Friday the start of the regular meeting of the Parliamentary portfolio committee on Telecommunications and Postal Services was held in camera as the Speaker had given permission for the public to be barred from the Special Investigations Unit’s (SIU) update on current cases.

This follows an incident, just last month, when the Chairperson of the Portfolio Committee on Communications, Joyce Moloi-Moropa, asked the media to leave the meeting when the discussion became about the qualifications of the SABC Chairperson Ellen Tshabalala.

It would appear that government’s current paranoia over security and secrecy has crept into the proceedings of Parliament's portfolio committees.

I objected to the in-camera decision when committee chairperson Mmamoloko Khubayi asked for the committee room to be cleared at the start of Friday's meeting. I felt that much of the information that was to be given to us was already in the public domain, the alleged perpetrators already named and that it was unlikely that sensitive information on specific lines of enquiry would be shared with the committee.

Ms Khubayi dismissed my concerns.

SIU Head Adv Vas Soni then proceeded to inform the committee of the basics of the five investigations of matters concerning the Universal Service and Access Agency of South Africa (USAASA), the former Department of Communications (now largely resident in DTPS), two cases involving the State Information and Technology Agency and the South African Post Office.

The information given to the committee by Adv Soni concerned the current state of the procedural issues of the investigations and no information about the details of the alleged corrupt activities were shared.

I firmly believe that there was no reason for this briefing to be held in camera.

If the Speaker allows this to continue she will, in effect, be endorsing censorship which is a threat to our democracy and as such she must act with haste and ensure that transparency and accountability are the order of the day at Parliament.

Issued by the DA