Call for 'serious action' against Shiceka

Call for 'serious action' against Shiceka
2011-10-14 12:30

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Cape Town - Public Protector Thuli Madonsela has found Co-operative Governance Minister Sicelo Shiceka guilty of maladministration and repeated abuse of public funds.

She asked President Jacob Zuma to take "serious action" against him.

Madonsela said Shiceka deliberately misled the president about a trip to Switzerland in 2008 because it had no verifiable work content but saw him twice visit his then girlfriend in jail.

"His actions were accordingly unlawful and constituted maladministration, dishonesty in respect of public money and improper conduct."

Five-month probe

Madonsela's report on a five-month probe into the complaint against Shiceka was made public on Friday after she handed it to Parliament's joint committee on ethics and members' interests.

She said Shiceka lied to her by denying that he visited the Anstalten Hindelbank prison in Berne, and this constituted another breach of the Executive Ethics Code.

The trip cost the taxpayer R546 864, an amount she termed "exorbitant".

She said the minister claimed that his trip was related to the FIFA World Cup and that he had met officials in Switzerland but said he could no longer remember who they were.

Madonsela concluded that two stays by Shiceka at Cape Town's One and Only Hotel in 2009 to the tune of R294 316 was a violation of the ethics code and the Constitution, as was his stay at the Lesotho Sun while he was on sick leave this year.

She rejected his explanation that he could not stay at his residence in Cape Town on the one occasion because it was infested with mosquitoes and on the second because it was due for upgrading.

"We questioned why the mosquitoes were not doomed away."

Victimisation

Madonsela said Shiceka's demand that the department pay for his hotel stay in Lesotho while he was on sick leave and not entitled to such a privilege also "constituted fraudulent misrepresentation".

She asked that the director general in the presidency advise her within 60 days of action taken against Shiceka.

Madonsela also recommended that the director general of the department of co-operative governance take steps to recover the cost of the trip to Switzerland, the stay at the One and Only and travel expenses incurred by the wife of a man Shiceka described as his father figure.

She called on the department to ensure that officials who co-operated with the investigation were not victimised, given that "some expressed concern that they were going to suffer an occupational detriment".

Madonsela indicated that she took these fears seriously because it became apparent that after her provisional report was given to Shiceka, witnesses had been approached.

"This should not have happened," she said.




- SAPA

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