THURSDAY, 4.00PM
THE Director General of Housing, Billy Cobbett, has been fired after asking the auditor general to investigate the R185-million Mpumalanga Housing Project, the largest yet under the government’s housing subsidy scheme.
In a hastily called press conference on Thursday afternoon, Housing Minister Sankie Mthembi-Mahanyele denied Cobbett had been fired, saying he had asked to resign. “It was just becoming very difficult to work together,” she said. “There is nothing we can do about it.” However, numerous government sources dispute the minister’s version, saying that Cobbett did not leave voluntarily.
Cobbett, an academic, was a close associate of Mthembi-Mahanyele’s predecessor Joe Slovo and is the architect of SA’s mass housing programme. Speaking at the University of the Witwatersrand last night, he would say only that he was “not sure” if he still had a job.
Mpumalanga auditor general Bertie Loots has confirmed Cobbett had asked his office to investigate the Mpumalanga Rural Housing Project and that the investigation is under way. Yesterday, Nedbank’s general manager involved with low cost housing — including the Mpumalanga project — was dismissed, accused of conflict of interest and misrepresentation. The manager, Kevin Gibb, said last night his dismissal was a “kangaroo court”, and denied that there were any irregularities.
FRIDAY, 3.30PM
PUBLIC Service Minister Zola Skweyiya on Thursday night issued a carefully worded statement saying that his office is “in receipt of a request from both the minister of housing and Mr Billy Cobbett for the termination of services” rendered by Cobbett as housing director-general. “The request emanates from a mutual agreement reached by both parties to the fact that their relationship as minister and director-general has irretrievably broken down such that it is no longer in the interest of the country for them to work together.” An official in Skweyiya’s department explained there are five possible ways for a director general to vacate his job, but that the department does not know into which category Cobbett falls.
FRIDAY, 4.30PM
DEMOCRATIC Party chief whip Douglas Gobson Friday requested National Assembly Speaker Dr Frene Ginwala to allow an urgent snap debate on the circumstances surrounding Cobbett’s termination of employment.