DA calls for prison jobs probe
2003-03-04 18:59
Cape Town - The Democratic Alliance has called for a parliamentary probe into an African National Congress MP's role in allegedly securing jobs for pals in correctional services.
The call came as the Jali Commission on Tuesday heard fresh evidence on the involvement of the MP, Bathabile Dlamini.
Dlamini, a member of the National Assembly's correctional services portfolio committee, has denied any irregularity.
DA spokesperson on correctional services Mike Ellis said he had asked both Speaker Dr Frene Ginwala and the Public Service Commission to investigate "the alleged nepotism" involving Dlamini.
Ellis said the dubious circumstances surrounding the appointment of her cousin, Sabelo Dlamini, to a department post in the Western Cape needed to be properly investigated.
"He applied unsuccessfully for four years to be appointed as a prison warder but it appears that he was only successful after his cousin intervened on his behalf," Ellis said. "This certainly smacks of nepotism."
Sabelo Dlamini was one of six people, all from Ms Dlamini's home province KwaZulu-Natal, who were appointed to department posts in the Western Cape at the end of 2001.
Their appointments came under scrutiny after it was noticed that several of their application forms listed Ms Dlamini's residence at the parliamentary village in Cape Town as their home address.
'Sister'
In an affidavit handed in at the commission hearings on Tuesday, another of the six, Ntompela Shange, said Dlamini was a friend of her aunt, Pietermaritzburg ANC local councillor Zonke Ngwenya-Mbatha.
"At sometime in 2001 I asked Bathabile to allow me to use her Cape Town address in my application for a job in the Department of Correctional Services, Western Cape," Shange said.
"I told her that it is difficult for a person outside a province to be employed in another province... Bathabile gave me the address E112 Arcacia [sic] Park, Goodwood, Cape Town.
"I made an application through the Z83 form and gave it to her to take to the Western Cape Department of Correctional Services.
"I then waited to be called for an interview. I know that Bathabile also took the application form for my 'sister' Buyisile Saraphine Hlongwane to Cape Town."
Hlongwane, who testified before the commission on Monday, was also successful in securing a post.
However, when she took the stand at the commission on Tuesday afternoon, Shange said the affidavit, which she made to a commission investigator last year, was incorrect, and insisted she had in fact posted her application.
Not qualified
She was unable to explain why the copy of her matric certificate on her departmental personnel file, which should have accompanied her Z83 application, was certified in Pietermartizburg on October 4, the day before applications closed in Cape Town.
"I'm suggesting Miss Shange that you understand the implications of what's written there [in your affidavit] and you are trying to divorce yourself from that," said the commission's leader of evidence Vas Soni.
"I've got no response," said Shange, who gave much of her testimony with her head bowed.
Asked by commission chair Thabani Jali why only five subjects were listed on her matric certificate instead of what he understood was the requisite six, she said "many people" had only five.
"I think we'd better check it," said Jali.
"We certainly will," said Soni.
Evidence before the commission has been that 30 000 people applied for the 100 jobs on offer in the Western Cape.
The province's then-acting recruitment head Samuel Theron said that after candidates had already been short-listed and interviewed, former acting provincial commissioner Mnikelwa Nxele gave him a list of names "from Parliament".
Nxele had insisted that an interviewing panel be constituted at short notice to deal with the applicants on the list.
The hearing continues on Wednesday.
- SAPA