Parliament started to suspect that something was wrong with the travel-voucher system at the end of 2002 when its finance staff realised that one MP, whose home was in Vrede, was “supposedly” repeatedly travelling to Umtata, said Speaker Baleka Mbete on Tuesday.
Speaking during the debate on the so-called Travelgate — the alleged misuse of travel vouchers issued to MPs for road, rail and air travel — Mbete said that when the MP was questioned early in 2003, it transpired that “he had never been to Umtata in his life”.
However, the speaker said that when the travel agent, Sure ITC Travel, was engaged by finance staff, its response was unsatisfactory.
South African Airways (SAA) was asked to carry out a broader probe “which resulted in other travel agents being identified”.
It became apparent after engaging SAA that the “extent of damage was serious”, she said.
“The close assessment of books and records of ITC revealed that some members had received benefits that appear to have been paid for by Parliament.”
Parliament itself says about R13-million was involved in dodgy transactions.
“These included car hire, hotel accommodation and foreign exchange transactions,” Mbete said.
The probe involved a forensic audit by PriceWaterhouseCoopers and the calling in of the police and the National Directorate of Public Prosecutions.
‘Crooks must be punished’
Inkatha Freedom Party chief whip Koos van der Merwe said it would be unwise to name MPs before anyone is found guilty in a court of law. Official opposition chief whip Douglas Gibson said: “The crooks must be punished and the innocent exonerated. Only in this way will the reputation of Parliament be restored.”
He described Travelgate as the biggest crisis to hit Parliament “since the advent of democracy in 1994”. It is necessary to expose crooks — and exonerate the innocent — whether the people concerned are travel agents, officials or MPs, he suggested.
“It is not Parliament’s money or the state’s money that is at issue: it is the people’s money. Every cent we spend could have been used for other purposes and priorities like building houses and schools and providing more police officers to fight crime.”
ANC sounds warning
African National Congress chief whip Mbulelo Goniwe warned against the attitude that “whatever is African … whatever is black is inherently corrupt”, indicating that he has sympathy for Democratic Alliance MP Craig Morkel who is a coloured in an overwhelmingly white political party.
Morkel is the only MP who has been publicly named for having been the focus of a Scorpions investigation. Twenty-two other MPs’ names were handed to their parties, but not released publicly.
Gibson objected to Goniwe’s comments about Morkel being in a white party and Deputy Speaker Gwen Mahlangu promised to study the Hansard, the parliamentary record, to determine if this was unparliamentary.
Altogether, 19 ANC MPs were apparently on the Scorpions’ list while three came from the New National Party — including one who has joined the DA, Charles Redcliffe, who was not re-elected in April. Redcliffe himself acknowledged the probe but the ANC and NNP declined to release the names on their lists.
Goniwe, in the debate on Tuesday, said the names of MPs should not be released before they are found guilty.
The ANC also objected to DA MP Mike Waters saying “it is your corrupt MPs — please tell me how you did it”.
Mahlangu said she would look into whether this statement was parliamentary.
Mbete said “clearly, somehow, with or without Members’ conscious involvement or participation … the vouchers were providing opportunities for fraud”.
In some cases as far as the services of ITC were concerned, “MPs had never utilised the services of ITC and it was a mystery to them how they became implicated.
Parliament needs to ‘close the gaps’
“As Parliament, these are the loopholes we must study in detail as we relook at the system, so we close the gaps and restore confidence in the institution and the honourable Members elected to serve our people,” said Mbete.
She noted there had been a lack of proper control over the issuing, use and cancellation of vouchers, no system to check how often travel agents invoiced Parliament for the same trips undertaken and no system properly to validate invoices submitted or to validate trips undertaken in MPs’ names.
However, Mbete accused the media of having carried “numerous stories implicating current and former members”.
She said she has “consistently refused to add to the confusion and the frenzy that has tried and sentenced Members ahead of time. No amount of intimidation will change my approach to this.” — I-Net Bridge
Scam probe ‘taking too long’