New scandal rocks home affairs

2003-03-11 12:45

Cape Town - Home affairs acting director-general Ivan Lambinon has told MPs he has uncovered a host of problems involving millions of rands in unauthorised expenditure and alleged graft in his department.

The allegations are contained in a brief letter tabled at Tuesday's meeting of the national assembly's home affairs committee and will be discussed at its meeting next week.

The letter says: "I also wish regrettably to share ...that in the number of months that I have been acting I have uncovered a host of problems ranging from unauthorised expenditure to deliberate efforts toward hiding claims, ex contractu.

"I simply cannot, nor wish to, inform on these matters at a meeting open to the media, it involves millions of rands."

The United Democratic Movement's Annelize van Wyk took exception, saying South Africa's parliament's was transparent and open and that the acting director-general should brief MPs in public.

It was not clear whether Lambinon would point fingers at former director-general Billy Masetlha - now in the presidency - and with whom Home Affairs Minister Mangosuthu Buthelezi had a stormy relationship.

64 complaints against director-general

Last year, Buthelezi told the committee he would be forced to table a damage-control bill to protect the state from being sued because the extension - against his wishes - of Masetlha's contract was invalid.

Buthelezi took the unprecedented step in October 2001 of presenting a list of 64 complaints about Masetlha to the committee, including one of insubordination.

Auditor-general Shauket Fakie has since found that the extension of Masetlha's contract for a year to June 20 was, in fact, invalid, as was originally claimed by Buthelezi.

Fakie's report noted that the expenditure incurred by Masetlha while his appointment "was not in accordance with ... legislative requirements" amounted to about R839m for the period June 21, 2001 to March 31, 2002 and a further R332m for the period April 1, 2002 to June 20, 2002.

Buthelezi previously warned that, because Masetlha was not legally appointed, this would raise questions about the legality of thousands of actions taken by the home affairs department in that period, including deportation notices.

This would result in a major liability for the state and would have to be addressed by an ad hoc law, Buthelezi said at the time.

Lambinon has been acting director-general since June last year, because of the deadlock between Buthelezi and his cabinet colleagues over who should succeed Masetlha.

- SAPA