'Probe Balfour housing'
2009-07-14 15:35
Cape Town - Reports implicating the wife of former correctional services minister Ngconde Balfour in the prisons housing scandal need to be investigated, the Democratic Alliance said on Tuesday.
"Reports have implicated Thozama Mqobi-Balfour, who is the regional correctional services commissioner in Gauteng, in the rental of a R30 000 a month golf estate house at taxpayer's expense," DA correctional services spokesperson James Selfe said in a statement.
This was even though Mqobi-Balfour had a perfectly acceptable official residence at her disposal.
The DA is seeking answers on whether or not... Balfour approved his wife's accommodation in the correctional services housing scandal.
"The National Commissioner, Xoliswa Sibeko, who lives in the same estate, has been placed on precautionary suspension pending an investigation, and yet she [Mqobi-Balfour] has not," Selfe said.
Correctional services spokesperson Manelisi Wolela had implied during a radio interview on Tuesday morning that the accommodation decision had indeed been approved by Balfour.
"Was [Minister] Balfour in effect, through his wife, approving his own lavish housing at the taxpayer's expense? [His] involvement in this matter must quite clearly now be interrogated.
"The DA will insist that these matters be added to the Public Service Commission's investigation," Selfe said.
- SAPA
