Marianne Merten
‘We are divided and we will remain divided. Let’s vote and go home,” an African National Congress member of Parliament’s ethics committee proposed.
And for the first time ever the committee voted mostly along party political lines.
Minutes earlier Pan Africanist Congress MP Patricia de Lille had also called for a show of hands. Her request that ANC chief whip Tony Yengeni be called before them was taken up by other opposition parties, but repeatedly shot down by the ANC.
The historic vote ended two hours of deliberations whether Yengeni had fully declared his interests and benefits regarding his Milnerton home and the alleged free use of his luxury 4×4 Mercedes Benz ML320 for seven months until May 1999.
Yengeni has maintained he believed he did not have to declare the house again after listing it in 1996 and that the luxury sports utility car was legitimately purchased and thus was not a benefit to be declared.
“I am not legally obliged to furnish any information that is sought purely on a witch-hunt basis … I am willing to subject myself to the rules of Parliament correctly applied,” he wrote to the registrar of members’ interests, Fazela Mahomed, last month.
This week a number of MPs submitted further details of assets to the registrar’s office. Mahomed said they were “small additions”. There were also queries on the next round of declarations due to start soon.
Wednesday’s ethics committee proceedings were observed by several senior ANC MPs such as deputy chief whip Geoff Doidge and finance committee chair Barbara Hogan.
There was little agreement beyond Yengeni having transgressed Parliament’s code of ethics by failing to declare his Milnerton home in the years after 1996 and that there should be an investigation regarding the luxury 4×4.
All parties agreed with the registrar’s recommendation that any alleged impropriety linked to the multibillion-rand arms deal should be left to the current probe and that investigators be asked to report to the committee.
The first vote decided that Yengeni would be asked to supply the missing property details. The PAC and Democratic Alliance MPs remained opposed. In the second vote the ANC, supported by the Inkatha Freedom Party, carried the proposal by its MP Jeremy Cronin that any action regarding the Mercedes Benz should be delayed until the arms deal joint investigation team finalised its report.
“It will be redundant to run a parallel investigation,” said Cronin. “It is our belief that this extensive, comprehensive, professional and tri-pronged investigation process that is currently under way is dealing with all the matters we are interested in and others.”
But United Democratic Movement MP Annelize van Wyk argued the committee could not delegate its responsibilities. “The rumour itself is putting a shadow of doubt over this institution.”
In the face of such criticism, Cronin and other ANC MPs said it was wrong to suggest a dereliction of duty. The committee would still deal with the matter once the arms deal investigation was completed in July.
The probe followed a report by Auditor General Shauket Fakie to Parliament last October indicating inconsistencies with generally accepted arms procurement procedures.
In the political fallout over the public accounts committee’s drive for an investigation into the R50-billion arms acquisitions, the ANC closed ranks in an apparent effort to assert control in the committee.
ANC MP Andrew Feinstein was relieved from co-chairing the public accounts committee and heading the corresponding ANC study group when he bucked the party line on who should investigate. Subsequently party political tensions surfaced in the committee, a crucial watchdog over how the government spends money, which had previously worked towards consensus decisions.
The investigation by the auditor general, public protector and Investigative Directorate for Serious Economic Offices is expected to hold public hearings in Pretoria from the end of this month.
The Institute for Democracy in South Africa’s political information and monitoring service programme manager, Richard Calland, said the ethics committee’s decision to wait for the probe could be flouting an earlier ruling by National Assembly Speaker Frene Ginwala that committees could not “subcontract” its work. “It makes a certain amount of political sense and saves Mr Yengeni. But I don’t think they have done their duty under the code [of ethics].”
Referring to the arms deal investigation Ginwala earlier this year told the public accounts committee that “a committee of the National Assembly has no authority to subcontract its work to any of these [investigating] bodies or require them to under- take any particular activity or to report to the committee”.
National Directorate of Public Prosecutions representative Sipho Ngwema would not comment when asked whether Yengeni had been subpoenaed to testify before the joint arms deal probe. However, he did say investigators would report back on its findings to Parliament because of its instrumental role in getting the probe going. But this would not delay any possible arrests and criminal prosecutions stemming from the investigation.
In March the Sunday Times reported that Yengeni’s 4×4 was requested as a staff car by a senior official in European Aeronautics Defence and Space Company. The company, which successfully bid for a slice of the arms deal, later said it had supplied 30 cars to South African VIPs. The newspaper also pointed to delays between Yengeni obtaining the car, its registration, the signing of a financing plan and the first payment.