WEDNESDAY, 5.30PM
HOUSING Minister Sankie Mthembi-Mahanyele, in a parliamentary interpellation on Wednesday, said she had encouraged her director-general Billy Cobbett to approach the auditor-general with any concerns he had about the Mpumalanga Rural Housing Project.
The minister’s statement was in sharp contrast to remarks she made in a press conference last week called to explain that Cobbett had not been fored but had resigned, where she accused Cobbett of “running to the auditor-general instead of discussing the matter with her first”.
“Don’t rush the auditor-general. He must take his time to investigate those issues because I’m also very interested on the outcome of those issues,” she said in an interpellation debate in the National Assembly.
The Mpumalanga Rural Housing Project is to be a subject of a snap debate in the National Assembly on Thursday.
WEDNESDAY, 2.30PM
NATIONAL auditor general Henri Kluever on Wednesday said his office has begun an investigation into the Mpumalanga Rural Housing Project after receiving complaints of “certain erroneous payments” from housing director-general Billy Cobbett.
Kluever told a National Assembly public accounts committee hearing Cobbett “had been trying to recover these funds without any success and he asked us to investigate”.
Meanwhile, Mpumalanga housing, local government and land administration MEC Craig Padayachee has been summoned to appear before the National Assembly’s housing committee next Tuesday to explain the background to the controversy.
WEDNESDAY, 8.30AM
MPUMALANGA premier Mathews Phosa has backed his housing MEC’s decision to sack members of the housing board following conroversy over the award of a large conract to Motheo Construction, a company which was not yet registered and was owned by a friend of housing minister Sankie Mthembi-Mahanyele.