Sexwale resignation: action needs to be taken on conflicts of interest

Ian Davidson, Chief Whip of the Democratic Alliance
13 May 2009

It is important that anyone in a position to influence government expenditure is always completely free from commercial interests. The Democratic Alliance (DA) therefore welcomes the announcement of the resignation of the new Minister of Human Settlements, Mr. Tokyo Sexwale, as the executive chairman of the Mvelaphanda Group.
 
While it is important for MPs to be above suspicion, the same must also apply to public servants. The DA therefore calls on the new regime to set a tone of principled administration by taking firm action against government employees who a recent Auditor-General’s report has found to have been doing business with national departments.
 
We call on the new government administration to urgently institute disciplinary action against all state officials who were found in this report to have transgressed the Public Finance Management Act by not reporting their business interests.
 
In the report, tabled two weeks ago, the Auditor-General found that some government employees had made misrepresentations in tender documentation by not declaring their connections to companies making tender bids.
 
A total of 49 state employees were found to be directors or members of companies that did business with national departments. Only 4% of these employees had permission to do this. For the period between August 2007 and July 2008, a total amount of R35 million was paid to these companies. Public servants did not have permission to be directors or members of these tendering companies.
 
In addition to acting against these employees, we also call on the new regime to ensure that national departments create databases to monitor employees who do other remunerative work – the Auditor-General condemned departments for not having such registers.
 
The new Zuma administration has promised to act against cronyism. This is a clear example of such cronyism and we hope that it will show its commitment to corruption-free government by acting swiftly on this issue.