Parliament – Speaker Baleka Mbete on Wednesday said she had asked Parliament’s rules committee to look into the scathing criticism Economic Freedom Fighers leader Julius Malema’s levelled at President Jacob Zuma in the debate on the State of the Nation Address.

Mbete told the National Assembly she would stand by her ruling that Malema’s remarks would be expunged from the official record of the first day of the debate on Tuesday and added she had also referred it to the “rules committee for perusing”.

The Speaker said that this constituted her response to a letter she received from the EFF asking her to reverse her ruling that the remarks be struck from the record.

Malema on Tuesday told the chamber he wished to apologise to former presidents Nelson Mandela and Thabo Mbeki for having helped to bring Zuma to power and accused the president of turning South Africa into a “junk country”.

He added: “This is the man who knowingly had sex with an HIV positive woman and later explained to a court that a shower will lessen the chances of contracting HIV. We are now a laughing stock of the world.

“This is the man who knowingly impregnated a friend’s child despite that he had many wives at home.”

After his speech, Malema led a walkout of EFF MPs from the assembly and Mbete said he had erred in that remarks of this nature needed to be put before the house in the form of a substantive motion.