Cape Town - Parliament heard on Thursday that it was all systems go for the State of the Nation Address (Sona) next week, but the EFF was unhappy with the seating arrangements for the day.
This emerged when the programme committee met to be briefed about the preparations for the annual event, where President Cyril Ramaphosa will outline this years’ government programmes.
Last week, there was an issue with the allocation of seats for guests of political parties.
Secretary to Parliament, Xolile George, told the MPs that they had been hard at work in terms of preparations for next Thursday.
Dumisani Sithole, programme manager for Sona, said the work for the event has been done and that they had made a presentation to the chief whips forum.
“We can indicate that all the systems go,” Sithole said.
“All stakeholders that are involved – the presidency, Dirco (Department of International Relations and Co-operation) and the police – have a meeting today to make sure final touch-ups are done.
“We are comfortable and we can assure the members that we will be able to deliver the Sona that you expect us to do,” he said.
Secretary to the National Assembly, Masibulele Xaso, said the seats allocated for the guests of political parties have been increased to 90, with 72 seats for parties in the National Assembly and 18 for the National Council of Provinces (NCOP).
Last week, ANC chief whip Pemmy Majodina raised concern that out of the 263 guests to sit in the Cape Town City Hall gallery, only 50 were allocated to the parties in both Houses – 40 seats to National Assembly and 10 to the NCOP.
On Thursday, Xaso said that a matter came up about the seating arrangements at the meeting with chief whips on Wednesday.
“There was a query from the EFF about the seats that they have been allocated and we committed to engage with the technical staff of the EFF, which we did on Thursday.
“The feedback we are getting is that there is still no acceptable seating arrangement as presented,” he said.
Xaso explained that the seating arrangement differed to that of the medium term budget policy statement (MTBPS) and December 13 sessions, because Sona was a joint sitting, which limited the space within the hall in terms of how many members could sit in a particular row.
“We explained at the chief whips forum that whereas the EFF, if you apply strictly proportionality, it would be entitled to two seats in the front row.
“We had to engage the DA to give one seat to the EFF and the DA was able to do that so the EFF has three seats in the front row and the DA four,” he told the meeting, which was attended by various parties including the EFF.
He also said they had circulated the basis for the seating arrangement and would not go through it unless asked because MPs have got the information.
“Our appeal really would be that the seating arrangement as presented be accepted for the joint sitting and obviously, for budget day it is going to revert back for what we have had for December 13 and for MTBPS sitting of National Assembly,” Xaso said.
National Assembly Speaker Nosiviwe Mapisa-Nqakula said because Sona was a joint sitting, there would be slight changes to their sitting arrangement.
Cape Times