Cape Town - Tony Yengeni was “failed” by Parliament, which should have applied its standards equally to everyone, according to Thandi Modise, the National Council of Provinces (NCOP) chairwoman.
“How do you then look at a member who has not declared, is given a chance, declares (and) is not called a fraudster today, but Tony Yengeni is called a fraudster out there,” she said in reference to the former ANC chief whip’s 2003 conviction for not declaring a discount on a luxury 4x4 from one of the arms deal companies in the parliamentary register of interests. The parliamentary ethics probe was suspended amid court proceedings.
“He’s advised that ‘you are not the only one. You should have declared the discount’. Isn’t there anything else we should have done to ensure that he actually understands the gravity of the situation where a member is not declaring and therefore committed whatever in terms of our own rules?” Modise said. “All our systems must be consistent. If you give advice to correct it, give (the chance to correct) to the other Tony Yengenis.”
The NCOP chairwoman was speaking at an ethics workshop on establishing ethics guidelines for elected public representatives hosted by the parliamentary joint ethics committee for parliamentarians and representatives of provincial legislatures and local government councils.
Modise appealed for codes of conduct to be clear, and not to be regarded as punitive.
Parliamentarians every year must declare gifts over a certain threshold alongside directorships, properties, sponsorships like travel, income outside their day job as MPs and pensions. Spouses details must also be declared, but remain in the confidential section of the register.
Parliament leads the way in transparency as details of parliamentarians’ financial disclosures are published on its website and the register is publicly released.
As cabinet ministers and their deputies remain MPs, their financial disclosures are also captured in the national legislature’s register of members’ interests, although as members of the executive they also file separate disclosures under the Executive Members Ethics Act. That’s the law under which the president, who is not a member of Parliament, files financial disclosures.
Similar processes happen within provincial legislatures, where public access frequently has to be requested.
However, the system for councillors in the country’s 278 municipalities is different and, according to a 2012 Institute for Security Studies (ISS) project, many councils did not have transparent public access to councillors’ financial declarations. Although the 2000 Municipal Structures Act requires councillors to declare, councils may decide to keep such registers totally confidential.
The auditor-general’s 2013/14 local government audit raised concerns about persistent conflicts of interest like obtaining contracts from councils despite the ban on councillors and council employees doing business with the council.
Twenty-one councillors, including two mayors, and 189 council employees obtained 304 contracts valued at R60 million in 69 councils. In 47 cases, employees and councillors failed to declare their interests. In addition, 4 043 awards worth R3.73 billion were made by councils to officials working elsewhere in the state, said the auditor-general’s latest local government audit.
As part of Tuesday’s workshop it was back to the ethics drawing board. Registrar of Members’ Interests, Fazela Mohamed, took the workshop through the parliamentary disclosure regimen, emphasising elected public representatives’ duty was to the public, not their own benefit.
Cape Argus