GOOD party councillor Roscoe Palm has called on Cape Town council speaker Felicity Purchase to step aside after witnessing a violent scuffle in the council chambers.
The council descended into chaos on Wednesday when EFF councillor Mzubanzi Dambuza was allegedly choked by security officials, while holding onto a table, after the red beret was ordered to leave the chamber.
The EFF said it had opened a complaint of assault and attempted murder.
“I informed the speaker that I won't be leaving the council because I'm still within the rules of the council. She is following an incorrect rule ... When that happened she called for people to come and get me out,” Dambuza told SAfm shortly after the incident.
EFF members moved around him and he resisted, holding onto a table leg. He alleged that security choked him until he passed out.
Palm, who filmed the incident, said: “The speaker of the City of Cape Town has failed in her duty to apply the rules of order fairly and consistently. During the oral question period following the mayor’s address, a session clearly regulated by rule 11.2 of the council’s own rules of order, the speaker unlawfully allowed a point of order. That decision alone broke the very rules we are all expected to uphold and set in motion the chaos that followed.
“I witnessed and recorded a public representative being choked to the point of unconsciousness.”
Palm said he would call for an urgent investigation into the speaker’s handling of the session, and disciplinary action against councillors who disrupted proceedings, regardless of political party.
TimesLIVE
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