‘I made a really stupid mistake’ – Fadiel Adams speaks on his parliamentary suspension
· Citizen
National Coloured Congress (NCC) leader Fadiel Adams has admitted having made a “really stupid mistake” that led to his suspension from parliament.
On Wednesday, Parliament confirmed that Adams was one of the MPs it had implemented sanctions against after the House adopted reports of the Joint Committee on Ethics and Members’ Interests, which found that they had contravened Parliament’s Code of Ethical Conduct and Disclosure of Members’ Interests.
Visit asg-reflektory.pl for more information.
Adams was found to have breached the Code after publishing a Facebook post containing the personal contact details of a DA staff member. The post included a screenshot of an internal email and identified the staff member in relation to an objection to a parliamentary motion.
“The committee found that the publication improperly disclosed personal information and recommended that Mr Adams be reprimanded in the House, apologise to the House, be suspended from parliamentary debates and committee meetings for 20 parliamentary days, and have his salary and allowances reduced for the same period,” said Parliament.
The MK party’s David Skosana is the other MP who has been suspended.
He was found to have contravened the Code in two separate matters.
In the first, the committee found that he had failed to properly disclose a directorship in UVO Communications in the public section of the Register of Members’ Interests, despite the company being identified in Auditor-General audit findings as a service provider. He was reprimanded in the House and fined R15 000.
In the second matter, the committee found that he had verbally intimidated a Newzroom Afrika journalist following an interview conducted in Parliament.
He was reprimanded in the House, suspended from parliamentary debates and committee meetings for 15 parliamentary days, and had his salary and allowances reduced for the duration of the suspension.
Adams admits mistake
In an interview with Newzroom Afrika on Wednesday night, Adams admitted that sharing a colleague’s number on social media was a “really stupid mistake”.
“I have apologised loudly and profusely. It was an incredibly stupid mistake,” he told the news channel.
Adams explained the matter stemmed from a motion his party brought forward to request the national government to intervene in the City of Cape Town, where 27 guns allegedly went missing and were unreported for almost a decade.
The DA objected to the motion, and Adams published the email of the objection and did not crop out the number of the member.
However, Adams took issue with the narrative being spun that his suspension had to do with the Madlanga commission.
His name has featured at the commission after submitting a complaint to suspended police minister Senzo Mchunu, which was then forwarded to the Investigating Directorate Against Corruption (Idac).
Adams was requesting an investigation into the cases he had opened in the Western Cape and Gauteng against Crime Intelligence officials, based on classified information.
However, his complaint sparked investigations found to have been unlawful at the Madlanga commission. Idac officials have resigned as a result.