Parliament’s Joint Committee on Ethics and Members’ Interests has found that ANC MP Faiez Jacobs breached the code of conduct of MPs by suggesting in a community Whatsapp group that DA Cape Town councillor Angus McKenzie was a ‘house n*gger’.
Though Jacobs has already apologized to McKenzie, the committee ordered that Jacobs must also apologise in the National Assembly, according to News24.
News24 reports that DA MP Alexandra Abrahams approached the legislature’s Joint Committee on Ethics and Members’ Interests with evidence of at least 26 messages on the group chat in which the term is used to refer to Bonteheuwel ward councillor McKenzie.
In response to the complaint, Jacobs labelled the matter frivolous, vexatious, and unfounded.
Jacobs said he and other NAC members on the group were ‘often insulted’ by McKenzie.
In response to one of the ‘insults’ on 23 April 2020, Jacobs posted the following on the group chat: “if a house n*gger was a person, it would be him”, referring to McKenzie.
However, the committee said it ‘also considered it unbecoming of a member of Parliament to place such comment on a community group chat. Further that the usage of the term cannot be justified as a means of retaliation to alleged insults hurled at political party members by McKenzie’.
The committee said that as the term ‘house n*gger’ was ‘derogatory, … the posting of the term on the group chat constitutes a breach of the members’ duty to maintain public confidence and trust in the integrity of Parliament’.
‘It further constitutes a breach of the members’ duty to eradicate all forms of discrimination,’ the committee found.