A R1,2-million scandal dubbed ”Flatgate”, involving 22 members of the KwaZulu-Natal legislature and 40 squatters, has erupted in the province.
The KwaZulu-Natal legislature’s public accounts committee is to bring the members of the legislature before the disciplinary and ethics committee to account for R400 000 they owe to the legislature in unpaid rent for government-owned flats in Ulundi. More than R700 000 cannot be recovered because 40 occupants of the flats — there are 80 flats in total — are squatters without valid leases. The remaining 18 flats are occupied by other employees of the legislature, who owe about R56 000.
The Mail & Guardian is in possession of the list of the transgressors, which includes the KwaZulu-Natal minister of public works, Blessed Gwala, who owes about R10 000; member of the national Parliament Vincent Ngema, who owes about R29 000; senior Inkatha Freedom Party member Velaphi Ndlovu, who owes R29 000; and the recently murdered Inanda slumlord, Thomas Shabalala, who owed R29 000.
A recent report by the parliamentary directorate of legal services notes that locks on the flats have been changed and security gates erected to ”prohibit the access of parliament”. An earlier report by the auditor general remarked that 32 fridges belonging to the legislature had been stolen from the flats.
The public accounts committee chairperson, Joanne Downs, said she suspected some members of the legislature could be using the flats as a cash cow by subletting them. However, this ”cannot be proven because there are no written contractual agreements”.
There was also evidence that ”members of the provincial legislature stay at the Holiday Inn [in Ulundi] when a flat has been allocated to them,” she said.
The scandal started in September 2002 when the legislature decided to convene all its meetings in Pietermaritzburg rather than commute between the city and Ulundi. The legislature resolved that all its members using the flats in Ulundi should vacate them so that they could be handed back to their owner, the department of works.
Two years later, most of the legislature members are still occupying the flats and squatters have taken over the rest. The works department must go to court to evict them.
Last week the public accounts committee moved into action, demanding that the legislature ”take the necessary disciplinary action … and that measures for recovery of arrear rentals be implemented immediately”.
The 22 legislature members have been charged with contempt of Parliament and will have to repay the market-related rental of R1 005 a month plus municipal rates and interest.
According to Downs, the matter dragged on for two years because of ”incompetence and intransigence in the legislature”.