The Economic Freedom Fighters have condemned national assembly speaker Baleka Mbete’s decision to pay a danger allowance to the “bouncers” in parliament.

Security officials‚ also known as the “white shirts”‚ will be paid an additional R400 due to their dangerous working conditions.

The red berets were physically dragged out of parliament by security officials after disrupting the state of the nation address by President Jacob Zuma earlier this year. They were summoned by Mbete.

Afterwards‚ the party’s general secretary Godrich Gardee vowed to “beat highlights out of the bastards”.

EFF spokesman Mbuyiseni Ndlozi on Sunday accused Mbete of using taxpayer’s money to pay her “professional hooligans” to curb free speech in parliament.

He said the security officials‚ by removing MPs from parliament‚ were violating the constitution.

“By paying people to come and remove MPs for things that they say as ‘dangerous work’ creates legitimate basis for fear‚ and thus‚ speech can no longer be considered to be free in parliament‚” he said.

“This proves yet again that parliament is willing to do everything‚ including compensated violence‚ to suppress speech all because they truth do not want the truth. Mbete has created a situation where there is more freedom of speech outside parliament‚ in places like taxi-ranks‚ than there is inside parliament.”