Faizel Patel, Radio Islam News – 06-02-2018
Parliament has announced that the State of the Nation Address (SONA) 2018 has been postponed.
Speaker Baleka Mbete made the announcement on Tuesday in the wake of a special meeting of the National Working Committee (NWC) on Wednesday to discuss the removal of President Jacob Zuma as president of the country.
The SONA was due to be delivered by President Jacob Zuma on Thursday.
Mbete says it had become clear that it was unlikely that a joint sitting of the two houses would be uneventful if it was held as planned.
She says Parliament took into account views of political stakeholders, society and concerns in the political environment.
“With this in mind, we decided to approach the President of the Republic to propose that we postpone the Joint Sitting in order to create room for establishing a much more conducive political atmosphere in Parliament. When we met the President, we then learnt that he was already writing to Parliament to ask for the postponement of SONA.”
This postponement has taken into account the scheduled tabling of the national budget in the next two weeks.
Mbete says a new date for the State of the Nation Address will be announced soon.
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