Cabinet ministers want clearer guidelines on handling gifts following the outcry over contractors giving Transport Minister S’bu Ndebele a top-of-the-range Mercedes-Benz, the government said on Wednesday.
Government spokesperson Themba Maseko said ministers raised the issue at the first meeting of President Jacob Zuma’s new Cabinet and commended Ndebele for returning the car, but mooted revisiting the executive code of ethics.
”Cabinet raised the issue … Maybe we need to look at the ethics handbook to make sure there is proper guidance,” he said.
”Ministers will always be given gifts, and as the new Cabinet we should discuss how these things are handled.”
Ndebele bowed to public pressure on Tuesday and asked KwaZulu-Natal contractors who gave him the car to sell it and use the proceeds to fund a training programme for emerging contractors.
He confirmed that Zuma had said he was entitled to keep the car with its price tag of more than R1-million, provided he declare the gift in accordance with the ethics code.
The Democratic Alliance, the South African Communist Party and the Congress of South African Trade Unions all urged him to return it, warning that lavish gifts could create a dangerous perception of conflict of interest.
The DA’s parliamentary leader, Athol Trollip, said Zuma had missed an opportunity to send a clear message against special favours for the ruling class.
The code of ethics stipulates that ministers must ask the president’s permission to keep any gift worth more than R1 000. If he agrees, the gift has to be declared. If not, it must be returned or given to the state.
Meanwhile, Zuma read a stern little lecture to his new council of ministers and their deputies on Wednesday.
First of all he welcomed all members, and paid tribute to the previous Cabinet for the work of its term of office. He also, according to Maseko, took the opportunity of specially welcoming all the new members.
”He urged members to take their responsibility seriously by working hard and to conduct themselves in a manner befitting their office,” Maseko said.
He was anxious to point out to them, Maseko added, that now that they are ministers everything they say in public will be taken to represent the government, and they should be careful about what they do say.
He said it was not so much about their behaviour as the things they tell people. — Sapa, I-Net Bridge