ActionSA parliamentary group leader Athol Trollip said he wanted an investigation into the swearing-in of former Minister of Sport, Arts and Culture, Zizi Kodwa, into parliament.
Kodwa was sworn in on Tuesday along with 58 other Mkhonto weSizwe (MK) party members.
He was formally charged with corruption earlier this month and resigned from his ministerial post.
The charges come after a National Bribery Commission report recommended he engaged in corruption involving alleged bribes amounting to R1.6 million.
Trollip said Kodwa's reinstatement went against what the African National Congress (ANC) and the president have been saying for years.
“Zizi Kodwa resigned as minister just before the election because he was heavily accused of corruption. He was released on bail and is being sworn in in parliament. So two things have happened. One is that the ANC's integrity committee is clearly not working. Even the Congress of South African Trade Unions has questioned his oath and we have questioned his oath. We will be asking the ethics committee to investigate Zizi Kodwa because we believe he is unfit to be a member of parliament,” Trollip added.
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Cosatu said it was shocked that the ANC had forced Kodwa to be sworn in as MP.
“When we heard he could be sworn in, we didn't expect that he would actually be sworn in, so this was actually a surprise given that when he was charged there was no need to enforce it,” said Zanele Sabella, national spokesperson for the trade union federation.
“He actually just resigned and we thought it was amazing, we applauded him for that, but now to see him come back to parliament to be sworn in as a member of parliament is really puzzling. What happened to these retirement rules that they came up with themselves,” Sabella added.-Reported by Ditheboho Ntamane
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