This, after they refused to condone over R560 000 worth of alleged irregular expenditure. 

This as the speaker of the provincial legislature, Mamikie Qabathe allegedly tried to get the committee to approve R568 803 that was spent at the Afridome events venue in Parys last year during former provincial premier Ace Magashule’s State of the Province Address last year. According to the DA’s Roy Jankielsohn, even members of the ANC agreed that Qabathe was out of order in her attempts to try and take an executive decision on the legislature’s expenditure. Qabathe also allegedly pulled another stunt earlier this year, which has now resulted in the party losing all confidence in her abilities as a Speaker.

Jankielsohn told OFM News that earlier this year, Qabathe allegedly deliberately undermined a decision taken by the Budget and Oversight Committee, which had on the record stated that it wanted to curb expenditure by lessening the number of guests at this year’s State of the Province Address by also holding it at the 4th Raadsaal, when she allegedly instead colluded with the Premier, Sefora Ntombela, to rather hold the event at the UFS’ South Campus, in the process spending up to about R3 million of money which was meant for the provincial legislature, which according to Jankielsohn is already facing financial constraints.

He said seeing that the party has now refused to condone the expenditure, they will now try to hold those responsible for authorizing the expenditure for these 2018 SOPA to account and these will include the accounting officer and Qabathe. “By law, the accounting officer is responsible for that function but they get directive from the Speaker and we will now try to have the two be held accountable for this matter as we set out to have that amount be declared as ‘irregular and wasteful expenditure’,” he said.

Meanwhile,  Tammy Wessels, who represents the FF+ on that committee, told OFM News, that the decision to even hold last year’s SOPA at the Afridome venue facility was not supported by this committee, however, Qabathe overruled the Committee’s decision by having the event in Parys. Wessel said now, over a year later,  committee members have learnt that the paperwork which was needed in light of this event is allegedly not even in place. “This points to the fact that we will now need to institute an investigation into how those monies were spent. We feel strongly that the event could have been simpler, with less people invited and at a cheaper venue, instead millions were wasted,” Wessels said.

She further added that had members of the ANC attended the meeting, they probably would have won today’s vote but the fact that opposition parties managed to outvote the party, speaks to its reluctance to attend meetings, which points to its failure to lead the country and the Free State. “I just hope that the masses will also take a lesson from this by outvoting the ANC on 08 May at the general elections,” Wessels concluded.

OFM News could not get hold of the EFF in the province’s Kgotso Morapela, who was also among those that outvoted the party on Tuesday at the provincial legislature offices in Bloemfontein.  


OFM News