DA hails Sexwale after resignation

May 13 2009 at 04:56PM

The Democratic Alliance has welcomed newly appointed Human Settlements Minister Tokyo Sexwale's resignation as executive chairperson of the Mvelaphanda Group.

Democratic Alliance chief whip Ian Davidson said it was important that anyone in a position to influence government spending was always completely free of commercial interests.

"The DA therefore welcomes the announcement of the resignation of the new Minister of Human Settlements, Tokyo Sexwale, as the executive chairman of the Mvelaphanda Group," Davidson said.

Sexwale resigned as executive chairperson and as a member of the group's board with effect from May 11.

President Jacob Zuma appointed Sexwale to head the Human Settlements Ministry on Sunday.
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Davidson called on the new administration to set a tone of "principled administration" by taking firm action against government employees, found in a recent auditor general's report, to have been doing business with national departments.

"We call on the new government administration to urgently institute disciplinary action against all state officials who were found in this report to have transgressed the Public Finance Management Act by not reporting their business interests," he said.

In the report, tabled two weeks ago, the auditor general found that some government employees had made misrepresentations in tender documentation by not declaring their connections to companies making tender bids.

Forty-nine state employees were found to be directors or members of companies that did business with national departments. Only four percent of these employees had permission to do this.

Between August 2007 and July 2008, R35-million was paid to these companies.

"Public servants did not have permission to be directors or members of these tendering companies," Davidson said.

"In addition to acting against these employees, we also call on the new regime to ensure that national departments create databases to monitor employees who do other remunerative work - the auditor general condemned departments for not having such registers." - Sapa

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