Lost it: The party’s deputy president, Paul Mashatile, was not amused by the union boo brigade. (Delwyn Verasamy/M&G)
Democratic Alliance (DA) leader John Steenhuisen has formally opened a corruption case against Deputy President Paul Mashatile, accusing him of benefiting from a web of nepotism and family patronage.
Steenhuisen and his entourage opened the case at Cape Town’s central police station on Monday, alleging Mashatile was the ultimate beneficiary of the graft for more than two decades.
He said the most recent scandal involved the purchase of a Constantia mansion by Mashatile’s son-in-law, Nceba Nonkwelo, for R28.9 million by his company, which allegedly still owed the Gauteng department of human settlements R7 million for a failed Alexandra housing project.
“Mashatile also faces allegations for having misled parliament for failing to properly declare his use of various properties, including a R37 million Waterfall house in Gauteng. In addition to this, Mashatile also breached the code of conduct by failing to act in all respects in a manner that is consistent with the integrity of their office or the government,” Steenhuisen said in a statement.
Last week, Steenhuisen, accompanied by DA Gauteng leader Solly Msimanga, went to the Union Buildings complex in Pretoria, home to the presidency, in an attempt to submit a “comprehensive docket” containing corruption allegations against Mashatile.
The DA has also submitted a formal complaint to parliament’s joint committee on ethics and members’ interests regarding an alleged breach of the members’ code of conduct by Mashatile for failing to disclose registrable interests or wilfully providing the registrar with incorrect or misleading details.
Prior to opening the criminal case, the official opposition said it had given President Cyril Ramaphosa a week to act against his deputy and urged him to use last week’s State of the Nation address (Sona) to remove Mashatile from his position and subject him to a full inquiry by the Special Investigating Unit.
“Given that the appointment of the deputy president is made solely at the discretion of the president of the republic, the DA submitted a dossier of allegations levelled against Paul Mashatile to the Union Buildings for the attention of President Cyril Ramaphosa on 2 February 2024,” Steenhuisen said.
This was rejected by the presidency, which accused the DA of grandstanding and urged the party to open a criminal case with the relevant authorities.
In a statement a week ago, presidential spokesperson Vincent Magwenya said ordinarily, the first port of call for anyone with evidence of criminal wrongdoing against anyone should be the police to lay criminal charges.
Magwenya suggested the DA was acting with a political motive.
“As members of parliament, cabinet members also make similar oaths and declarations on parliament’s register of members’ interests. These are public documents to which the DA and all other interested parties have unfettered access,” he said.
Speaking to journalists in Cape Town on Monday, Steenhuisen said it came as no surprise to the DA that the president had once again failed to act against members of the ANC who were implicated in corruption.
Had the president instituted lifestyle audits for his cabinet ministers, as promised in his first Sona in 2018, the allegations levelled against Mashatile would have come to light, Steenhuisen said. Lifestyle audits would require ministers to explain how they were living lifestyles not matched by their salaries.
At the time of Ramaphosa’s inaugural Sona, the executive was under a cloud of corruption allegations, with some officials, who he had inherited from his predecessor Jacob Zuma, implicated in state capture.
The president said it was time that the ANC-led government implemented resolutions on the conduct of — and conducted lifestyle audits on — all the people occupying positions of responsibility.
But six years later, with his administration drawing to a close, critics say Ramaphosa has failed to live up to his promise.
In his statement on Monday Steenhuisen said the integrity of the government was “laughable when our country’s second in command has such a large cloud of dire corruption allegations hanging over his head”.
“President Ramaphosa can no longer bury his head in the sand and hope it will somehow blow over. There now exists more than sufficient evidence to suggest that Paul Mashatile is and has been involved in egregious corruption during his tenure of various executive positions over the past two decades, and it is now time for him to face the consequences,” he said.
“We believe that it’s in the interest of South Africa for the president to break his silence about his deputy, he can not continue to act like nothing’s wrong and everything is alright.
“This is a huge scandal that is enveloping the presidency. You can not stand at Sona and talk about combating corruption, getting to the bottom of graft and eliminating state capture when the person occupying the office across from you at the Union Building has himself got a cloud over his head.”