ANC: Winnie 'embarrassing'

2003-03-17 21:57

Donwald Pressly

Cape Town - The chief whip of South Africa's ruling African National Congress (ANC) has admitted that the involvement of members of parliament - including Winnie Madikizela-Mandela - in cases of alleged fraud and corruption is embarrassing.

But he said that it was not his office's role to remove the errant MP from the National Assembly.

Speaking at a media briefing in his parliamentary boardroom Nathi Nhleko, nevertheless, said the ANC supported National Assembly Speaker Frene Ginwala's intention to reprimand "Comrade Winnie Madikizela-Mandela in line with the recommendations of the ethics committee (of parliament)".

He said he had written a letter to "Comrade" Madikizela-Mandela last week emphasising the need for her to be available to parliament.

She was given 10 days - from March 10 - to provide Parliament with a date when she will attend a National Assembly sitting to be publicly reprimanded by Ginwala.

Parliament last year unanimously endorsed the ethics committee recommendation that Ginwala should reprimand Madikizela-Mandela in public and fine her the equivalent of 15 days' salary.

She was found guilty of failing to disclose donations of R50 000 a month and her financial interests in the Mandela family museum.

Nhleko said the majority of members of the joint committee on ethics and members' interests were ANC MPs and they "found that she had transgressed the code of conduct and recommended that she be fined".

"This is a clear case of the effectiveness of mechanisms and policies put in place by the ANC. Cde Winnie's continued membership of the national assembly is a matter to be considered by the NEC (national executive committee of the ruling party) and the ANC and not this office."

Asked what he would do if Madikizela-Mandela did not respond by March 20 as Ginwala had ordered, he said: "We will have to establish reasons for her non-attendance (at parliament) and proceed from that point onwards ... informed by whatever reasons she would want to advance."

Fraud charges

Asked if she would be asked to resign if she was found guilty of fraud charges which she currently faces, he said: "No I am not going to respond ... whether (we will) ask her to resign," adding that if she were found guilty "national leaders and the national disciplinary committee of the ANC" would have "to look into that ... and decide in terms of the deployment policy what needs to happen to her".

Asked specifically if her conduct was becoming an embarrassment to the ANC, Nhleko said: "Of course the question of members of parliament of the ANC facing all these kinds of allegations ... whether corruption or fraud and so on... is actually one of those issues ... as a party ....is not in basic simple terms a nice thing."

He was responding to a suggestion by opposition chief whip Douglas Gibson - who attended the media conference - that he should use the words "an enormous embarrassment".

Madikizela-Mandela recently blamed her predicament of facing 60 fraud and 25 theft charges on "a sick law" and "a pack of lies" in the Pretoria regional court.

The State is alleging that a letter containing the African Women's League letter head was used to fraudulently obtain loans from Saambou Bank. Her trial has been postponed to April 22.

- I-Net Bridge (Business)