A heated exchange took place yesterday in parliament's finance committee meeting when EFF chief whip Floyd Shivambu objected to a Treasury representative because he was not an African.

Shivambu objected to the repeated presence of Treasury deputy director-general Ismail Momoniat at finance committee meetings and asked why the African director-general, Dondo Mogajane, did not appear. He said this undermined African representativeness.

Shivambu said in an interview later that he did not see why Momoniat attended all finance committee meetings, whether they dealt with the Reserve Bank, tax matters or financial sector transformation.

"I think he undermines Africans," Shivambu said.

"He does not take the
director-general, finance minister or the deputy finance minister seriously. He thinks he is superior to them. He takes all the decisions and he is always here in parliament as if he is National Treasury alone. He is supposed to focus on what he is assigned to."

Finance committee chairman Yunus Carrim was furious, calling Shivambu to order and saying that Momoniat was a Struggle veteran who had been active in the underground Struggle against apartheid.

ANC MP Thandi Tobias also objected to Shivambu's comments.

Approached for comment on the views expressed by Shivambu, Momoniat said he rejected "with contempt" his unsubstantiated allegations.

"I have no issues with MPs holding us to account and we will answer all the questions that need to be answered.

"But he is not only jumping to conclusions but it seems to me he has a clear agenda to get rid of me. I want him to know that the Guptas tried to get rid of me and he too will not succeed," Momoniat said.

He said he had grown up in a tradition to fight for non-racialism and "I think any attempt to target people racially ... I reject with the contempt it deserves".