Former deputy president Baleka Mbete has insisted that no controversy exists around her not being sworn in as a member of Parliament last week.

She said a decision was only taken the night before she was due to take the oath and there was no time to inform Chief Justice Pius Langa and parliamentary staff.

Last week Langa called out Mbete?s name while swearing in MPs. But the African National Congress chairperson did not get respond to the call.

?There was no controversy. It's amazing how a non issue can blow up into something huge around which there can be such, what I can call, fantastic stories because one of them was that I walked out in anger because and I had disagreed with [Jacob Zuma],? Mbete said on Tuesday.

It was speculated that Mbete had overplayed her hand and refused to be sworn in because she had been overlooked as deputy president.

However, she said it made political and logical sense for Kgalema Motlanthe to fill the post because he was the ANC?s deputy president.

The former speaker of Parliament said she was not disappointed to be working at Chief Albert Luthuli House.

Nqakula could join Mbete

Another senior ANC member who has yet to find out what his role in politics will be is Charles Nqakula.

The former Safety and Security minister said his role in government and the ruling party still has to be defined. But he is confident he will be working very closely with Zuma.

Nqakula said he would meet the president in the next few days to discuss his future.

"I can't pretend that I know everything that he wants done. There is nothing I can say until he himself has properly designated what I am going to be doing but it is a fact that I'm going to be working with him," Nqakula said.