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18:29 10 Feb 12
DA eyes 'crooked comrades'
Thu, 08 Oct 2009 12:00
The Democratic Alliance on Thursday launched a "crooked
comrades" monitor listing the names of ANC officials found guilty
of crimes or misconduct and called for them to be kicked out of
public service.
The monitor contains the names of 16 officials, among them MPs
Winnie Madikizela-Mandela and Angie Molebatsi, who hold fraud
convictions, and MP and former health minister Manto
Tshabalala-Msimang, who was convicted of stealing a patient's watch
in a hospital in Botswana in the 1970s.
Also on the list are six MPs convicted in the Travelgate
scandal, among them parliamentary portfolio committee chairs Ruth
Bhengu and Mnyamezeli Booi, and disgraced academic Paul Ngobeni,
who was recently appointed legal advisor to Defence Minister
Lindiwe Sisulu.
Ngobeni was found guilty of misconduct and struck from the roll
as a lawyer in the United States. Deputy Home Affairs Minister
Malusi Gigaba in 2007 bought his wife flowers with state money, and
was forced to repay it.
Rethink deployment policy
DA spokesperson James Selfe said the party wanted to force the ANC
to rethink its deployment policy as it went against President Jacob
Zuma's stated desire to "create an ethos of accountability".
"There is clearly a disjunction between those sentiments
designed to ensure the right people represent the public's best
interest and political will necessary to make them a reality."
Selfe said most of those on the DA's list earned "significant
salaries" and together they cost the taxpayer R14-million a year.
He said the party believed if somebody had been found guilty of
misappropriating funds that person should not be trusted with
public money again.
He conceded that 16 was a relatively "small" number but
predicted that the list would grow.
It features two officials who hold prominent jobs in Zuma's
office.
The new chief operating officer in the presidency, Jessie
Duarte, had to resign as Gauteng's safety and security MEC after
she was suspected of covering up an accident because she did not
have a driver's licence.
The presidency's acting communications chief, former journalist
Vusi Mona, fell foul of the Hefer Commission for publishing a story
falsely claiming former prosecutions chief Bulelani Ngcuka was an
apartheid spy.