Note to Editors: Please see attached soundbites in English, Sesotho and IsiZulu by Karabo Khakhau MP
The DA has today filed a supplementary ethics complaint against the Minister of Higher Education and Training, Dr Nobuhle Nkabane, because shocking new information about the Minister’s conduct further misleading Parliament, has come to light.
Following the disclosure by the Minister of the names of the panel tasked with appointing the Sector Education and Training Authority (SETA) Board Chairperson, the DA has now learned that one of the members of the panel, Adv. Terry Motau, wrote to the Minister claiming that he had nothing to do with the process.
The DA’s supplementary ethics complaint comes in addition to the ethics complaint submitted yesterday against the Minister.
The DA also believes that the level of deceit and misleading of Parliament violates the Executive Members Ethics Code, for which the Public Protector has jurisdiction to investigate and make findings – and therefore the DA has reported Minister Nkabane to the Public Protector for investigation into the serious breach of the Executive Members Ethics Code in numerous counts of misleading Parliament.
The standing complaint is about the Minister misleading Parliament when she stated that the panel consisted of independent people, and subsequently informed Parliament that they were not independent at all. However, now in light of the new information that an alleged member of the panel denies participating, one can only wonder if a panel did ever exist, or whether the Minister simply provided a list of names to Parliament of persons she believed would cover for her.
Since this scandal came to light, the Minister has remained evasive, refusing to answer questions, delaying the disclosure of the names of the panel, continuing to conceal one of the names of the SETA appointment panel, misleading parliament, and now, it appears, further misleading Parliament about who was on the panel.
DA will supplement our complaint to ensure that the Ethics Committee of Parliament has evidence of the full extent of the Minister’s actions. The DA will also escalate this to the Public Protector for misleading Parliament, and allegedly lying to parliament, in violation of her binding ethics code as a Minister.