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ANC Chief Whip Mathole Motshekga is misguided if he thinks I will apologise for telling the truth about his poor parliamentary performance.

The facts are indisputable: The ANC’s Chief Whip has missed nine out of sixteen “ordinary meetings” of the Chief Whip’s Forum. And while he boasts about the three so-called “special meetings” he convened, he only attended one of them.

The facts are as follows:
The Chief Whip’s Forum has met 19 times in total this year (16 ordinary meetings and 3 special meetings).
The ANC’s Chief Whip has missed 11 meetings in total.
Three meetings have been cancelled.
A planned workshop was postponed for one week and then eventually cancelled with less than two days’ notice.
The Chief Whip’s Forum is not a decision-making body (NA Rule 221) and therefore does not need a quorum to hold a meeting.
One of my responsibilities is to ensure that Parliament is doing its work effectively. I will not apologise for holding the ANC’s parliamentary leadership to account when it shows such striking disregard for the institution and the people it represents.

Dr Motshekga’s leadership failure in Parliament is frankly outrageous. Motshekga is a road block to the effective running of Parliament. His clearly agitated but nonsensical rebuttal yesterday demonstrates, quite simply, that the truth hurts.