The Presidency has denied being inconsistent in its explanations on Deputy President Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka’s state-funded holiday trip to the United Arab Emirates (UAE).
”The consistent theme has been that she was on vacation,” presidential spokesperson Murphy Morobe told the SAFM radio station on Wednesday.
”Her further articulation, subsequently, was to give further details regarding what else she did during that time.”
When news of the trip broke, the presidency said the visit had been a private one, purely for holiday purposes.
Last week, Mlambo-Ngcuka was quoted suggesting that her trip had partly been for work purposes. A day later, an adviser in her office said the visit was, in fact, a holiday.
Morobe also denied on Wednesday that the Presidency had deliberately been silent over the fact that the wife of Social Development Minister Zola Skweyiya accompanied the deputy president.
This emerged more than a week after after the story broke.
”The initial [media] enquiries came with very specific questions about the trip,” Morobe said.
”It is for that reason that the first statement we issued … was quite specific, dealing with the question to whether the deputy had gone Emirates and what she had gone to do. That was the answer that was given.”
Morobe added: ”That answer remains consistent right up till whatever people consider to be the fourth, fifth or sixth version.”
Mlambo-Ngcuka’s only reference to the matter on Tuesday was: ”I don’t want to say too much. Everything that you say will be used against you,” she joked about the furore that media reports about her R700 000 flight on an Air Force jet had caused.
She was speaking at the opening of a National Youth Commission workshop in Benoni on the accelerated and shared growth initiative.
Also on board the SA Air Force Falcon 900 jet were her husband Bulelani, their two children, and two children of a personal assistant. The assistant travelled separately, said Morobe.
”It needs to be stressed that in no respect did the deputy president — or those who took the decisions regarding the modalities of travel to Abu Dhabi — infringe any law, regulation or prescript,” he told reporters in Pretoria.
First reports said Mlambo-Ngcuka took along her husband and their two children. On Monday, the presidency was silent on reports that more people joined the flight.
Morobe said Zola Skweyiya’s wife Thuthukile Mazibuko-Skweyiya went along because she was involved in growth initiatives in South Africa.
He said the deputy president had used the trip to learn from the growth and women empowerment projects of the UAE.
Mlambo-Ngcuka regarded Mazibuko-Skweyiya as ”the right person” to take along, Morobe told reporters. He rejected assertions that the trip, between December 27 and 31, amounted to an abuse of power.
”It is preposterous to say that she abused her power. It can’t be considered an abuse that she took a friend on the trip to find out about projects she was interested in.”
The Democratic Alliance, however, described the Presidency’s explanation as ”laughable”.
”The basic underlying fact remains that a trip was undertaken by the deputy president, her family and friends at taxpayers’ expense,” the party said in a statement.
”This is in direct violation of several sections of the Executive Members’ Ethics Act.”
The DA and the Freedom Front Plus had separately referred the matter to Public Protector Lawrence Mushwana for investigation.
”We look forward to his timely and full response to our request for his office to investigate the issue.”
The SA Communist Party said it realised the deputy president should at all times be under protection, but ”this should be done within the framework of some guidelines in which costs are minimised”.
It added: ”We are concerned that this trip sends an entirely wrong signal to our people.”
Morobe reiterated that the state paid for security, transport and associated costs for all private and official trips by the president and the deputy president.
The Emir of the UAE had provided accommodation for Mlambo-Ngcuka and her party at the government guest house and the UAE government had covered the transport and incidental costs of the visit.
Although Morobe could not detail exactly how much the trip cost the state, he said the ultimate cost would be publicised in the presidency’s annual report.
The DA has said that the trip cost the taxpayer R700 000. Responding to suggestions that the money could have been better spent elsewhere, Morobe said: ”A figure of R700 000 would be a drop in the ocean if it would be used to address the issues that the public has said the money for this trip could have been used for.”
The trip had been applied for by Mlambo-Ngcuka more than a week before the date of departure and had been approved by accountants and the director-general in the presidency Frank Chikane, said chief operations officer in the presidency Trevor Fowler.
Fowler said a request was made to the South African Air Force which then supplied the plane for the trip.
Since news of the trip broke earlier this month, the presidency’s responses to the matter have been marked by contradiction, with conflicting statements on the matter being issued within days of each other.
Mlambo-Ngcuka was not present at the press briefing on Tuesday. – Sapa