FRIDAY, 3.00PM
INDEPENDENT Broadcasting Authority co-chairman Peter de Klerk, who resigned last week in a financial scandal, misled Parliament’s public accounts committee over double claims for expenses on an overseas trip, and may be liable for prosecution for fraud.
The auditor general’s report on financial irregularities in the IBA said that on a United States Information Service-sponsored trip to the US, De Klerk and another IBA councillor had upgraded their tickets to business class at IBA expense, and De Klerk claimed his full IBA daily allowance and excess costs of R6 000 on hotel bills, while also using a corporate Diner’s Club card. De Klerk told the committee that he had claimed from the IBA only for costs not covered by the USIS allowance. However, public accounts committee members Gavin Woods (IFP) and Andrew Feinstein (ANC), who have both been on USIS trips, were suspicious and decided to verify information De Klerk had given them during last week’s hearing. They felt his claim that the USIS allowance was insufficient to even cover his hotel bills was very dubious.
Feinstein said that on an 18-day USIS trip he had only spent an extra R700 in addition to his USIS allowance. Woods, who contacted USIS, also said that while the organisation did not want to attract adverse publicity, the official in charge told him that never in his experience had a situation occurred whereby the allowance would be insufficient for hotel bills.
Feinstein suggested De Klerk had misled the committee. Asked for comment De Klerk said: “I cannot speak out of the hearings. The only thing I can say to you is that I dealt with my trip in accordance with my statement which I handed in at the hearings.” De Klerk was also not prepared to elaborate further about whether the USIS allowances would be inadequate to cover hotel bills.