ANC Chief Whip's Office, 23 April 2015 Postponement of Parliament Business to Address Xenophobia The Office of the ANC Chief Whip welcomes an agreement amongst party leaders in the National Assembly programming committee that Parliament postpones its next week's business to participate actively in efforts to address the unacceptable violent xenophobic incidents in KwaZulu Natal and several other areas in the country. The postponement of the parliamentary programme will afford MPs of all political parties, through their constituency offices, an opportunity to interact with communities and work with various stakeholders to discourage the violence and mobilise communities against xenophobia. Only a few MPs whose committees are involved in urgent business will be excused. Parliament will also establish a multiparty committee drawn from both Houses of Parliament (National Assembly and National Council of Provinces), which will visit areas identified as hotspots for attacks against foreign nationals to investigate causes and recommend measures to avoid the recurrence of such incidents. As a supreme representative body of the South African people, Parliament cannot continue as business as usual when the nation is confronted with a situation which threatens to tarnish our image as a peaceful and welcoming country in the eyes of the international community. Parliament, which last Thursday held an urgent snap debate and expressed its condemnation of these acts of xenophobia, ought to be seen amongst the people during these testing times working as part of the multipronged interventions to bring an end to this situation. A number of MPs have been on the ground in affected areas participating in various initiatives to arrest the situation and bring about stability. We would therefore like to see such work continuing in all constituencies across the length and breadth of the country. MPs even in unaffected provinces should interact with communities through various channels to promote message of peace, human solidarity and fraternity amongst Africans. Acts of violence against our African brothers and sisters, although committed by the few, are a blemish to all of us. We therefore continue to urge all South Africans to unite against this un-South African behaviour, participate in various anti-Xenophobia programmes and aggressively spread messages of peace and solidarity. Issued by the Office of the ANC Chief Whip Enquiries: Moloto Mothapo, 082 370 6930 -- -- You are subscribed. This footer can help you. Please POST your comments to [email protected] or reply to this message. You can visit the group WEB SITE at http://groups.google.com/group/yclsa-eom-forum for different delivery options, pages, files and membership. To UNSUBSCRIBE, please email [email protected] . You don't have to put anything in the "Subject:" field. You don't have to put anything in the message part. All you have to do is to send an e-mail to this address (repeat): [email protected] . --- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "YCLSA Discussion Forum" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
