Former Human Settlements Minister Lindiwe Sisulu. Photo: Supplied
Axed cabinet minister Lindiwe Sisulu wants to take on review the public protector’s ruling that the appointment of a national rapid response task team (NRRTT), loaded with her political allies, while she was minister of human settlements, water and sanitation was maladministration.
In her final report in response to complaints by Democratic Alliance (DA) MP Emma Powell over the appointment of the NRRTT and a ministerial advisor team, acting public protector Kholeka Gcaleka found that the allegation regarding the task team was substantiated.
The creation of the NRRTT in 2019, with an annual cost of R16 million a year in salaries alone, sparked allegations that Sisulu had appointed ANC activists, including Chumani Maxwele and Thami ka Plaatjie, who were part of her failed 2017 campaign for the party presidency, in a bid to have the state bankroll her 2022 campaign via the back door.
At the time, whistleblowers in the department told the Mail & Guardian the task team, along with boards under Sisulu’s control, were being loaded with her allies in an attempt to have them back her bid for the presidency.
The chair and deputy chair of the NRRTT earned over R5 500 a day and the ordinary members more than R4 300 daily, despite the fact that the team members did not have any particular expertise in the sector. Its members racked up massive travel and accommodation bills, with the water and sanitation component spending R3.7 million on travel during 2019 alone.
Sisulu defended the appointments but then went on to dissolve the NRRTT herself in May 2020, claiming that some of its members were purporting to be running her campaign in order to “pursue their business interests and easy wealth accumulation at the expense of the good cause”.
She did stage a second presidential campaign last year but failed to make the ballot for the ANC national conference due to a lack of support from the party’s branches around the country.
Gcaleka found that the complaint by Powell that Sisulu had appointed Menzi Simelane and Moe Shaik as special advisors unlawfully, and that her appointment of an advisory committee was irregular, was “not substantiated”.
The public protector instructed the human settlements and water and sanitation ministries, which were separated into individual ministries in 2021 in a cabinet reshuffle in which Sisulu was moved to tourism, to take remedial action.
Sisulu was axed from the cabinet by President Cyril Ramphosa in March.
Sisulu’s advisor Mphumzi Mdekazi said the report had been released without being given to Sisulu first.
“It is disappointing that advocate Gcaleka and her office allowed the report to become public without officially providing it to Sisulu, a party affected by it,” Mdekazi said.
He accused Gcaleka of “incompetence and bias”, saying that she had erred by viewing the rapid response teams in water and sanitation and human settlements as separate entities, and by making two conflicting findings over the NRRTT.
“Only one NRRTT existed under the department of human settlements, water and sanitation. The deputy public protector has either erred, misdirected herself or acted maliciously in ‘creating’ or referring to two NRRTTs on which she based her conflicting findings,” Mdekazi said.
“Human settlements, water and sanitation was one department, headed by one minister, and one director general, the accounting officer. Where the deputy public protector finds two NRRTTs remains a mystery.”
Mdekazi said it was “troubling” that the protector’s investigation had been “transformed into a biased propaganda tool for the DA, through the incompetent hands” of Gcaleka.
He said NRRTTs “did not start with Sisulu” and dated back through several administrations, whose appointments had not been challenged.
Gcaleka had also contradicted herself in instructing water and sanitation to take remedial action when she did not find that the water and sanitation task team had been appointed irregularly, Mdekazi asserted.
“Sisulu’s dedication, experience and sacrifice to serve the country in various portfolios is exemplary. In all her roles where she served, she has executed her constitutional mandate with a high degree of integrity and focus on the poor majority. Agenda-driven political witch hunts will not derail her,” he said
He said while Sisulu welcomed the dismissal of the DA’s complaint, she was “deeply disappointed by the weaponisation of portions of the report to attempt to tarnish her reputation”.
“Based on the contradictions outlined and a clear abuse of powers by Gcaleka, Sisulu will be consulting with her legal team to consider her available legal avenues, including taking the report on a review to set aside the single DA ‘political finding’,” he said.