FORMER Defence Minister Nosiviwe Mapisa-Nqakula has been elected as Speaker of the National Assembly after receiving 199 votes.
The DA’s candidate for National Assembly Speaker Dr Annelie Lotriet received 82 votes.
Mapisa-Nqakula was nominated by the ANC Caucus for this position amid controversy that she was not fit for the position because of corruption allegations against her, and that ANC Caucus members didn’t fully apply their minds to the nomination.
She is currently under investigation for allegedly receiving a R5 million bribe from a defence contractor, blowing R7 million on aircraft charters and living it up at luxury hotels.
Mapisa-Nqakula allegedly used a South African Air Force jet to smuggle a woman who was romantically linked with her son from the Democratic Republic of Congo to South Africa, the DA said in a statement on Thursday.
The party said that Mapisa-Nqakula also abused State resources by using anther Air Force jet to taxi her ANC colleagues to a meeting with ZANU-PF in Zimbabwe violating lockdown regulations.
She also initially supported a whitewashed report by the South African National Defense Force (SANDF) into the untimely death of Collins Khosa which exonerated the soldiers responsible. After an overwhelming furore, she later retracted this support and claimed she was misled.
The DA added that it was under Mapisa-Nqakula’s watch that SANDF wasted R215 million on an unregistered Covid-19 treatment drug known as ‘Interferon’ from Cuba without consultation with the Department of Health and other State departments.
- Inside Politics
