Parliament has expressed its satisfaction with the Western Cape High Court’s ruling to dismiss EFF member Floyd Shivambu’s urgent application to overturn the decision to deduct nine days’ salary from him.
Shivambu had approached the court after the Parliament’s Joint Committee on Ethics and Members’ Interests found him guilty of failing to disclose the R180,000 he received from Sgameka Projects in 2017, a company owned by his brother Brian, which was implicated in the looting of VBS Mutual Bank.
The court ruled that Shivambu’s argument of unfair investigation was baseless, as he had failed to disclose the payments before Parliament’s decision was made.
Additionally, the court found Shivambu’s claim of urgency to be invalid as he filed the application several months after the Ethics Committee’s decision was made. As a result, Shivambu has been ordered to pay the costs of the application.
In a separate case, the Western Cape High Court also dismissed the EFF’s application to overturn the suspension of its MPs who disrupted last year’s state of the nation address.
EFF leader Julius Malema, Shivambu, and other party members will be barred from attending the 2024 Sona and have been ordered to apologize for their actions. Furthermore, their salaries will be docked for one month in February.
