Cape Town - Concerns emerged again yesterday about grey areas in parliamentary rules on what gifts and financial interests members should disclose.
Gifts to traditional leaders, revolving benefits from savings clubs such as stokvels and gifts by communities to congratulate their new MPs topped the list of intangibles.
Luwellyn Landers, the chairman of the joint committee on ethics and members' interests in the pre-election parliament, and Fazela Mohamed, the registrar of members' interests, were hard put to answer queries from some members. These would obviously have to be flagged for full consideration by parliament's rules committee, they said.
This was the second briefing this week for MPs on the code of conduct they must stick to, but the new members at yesterday's meeting - mostly delegates from the national council of provinces - were at least reassured by the fact that the payment of lobola on the marriage of their daughters would not have to be declared.
But Landers strongly recommended that members attend a special session planned for today on personal financial management. Too many MPs, he said, had fallen into serious financial difficulties in the past by buying expensive houses and cars once they were appointed. They could not really afford such purchases on their MP salaries even if these were much higher than what they had been earning before.
Mohamed assured the MPs that the aim was not to make public what they earned from various sources. This would have to be declared but would be kept in confidential files. Most importantly, MPs would have to keep a list of all gifts they received.
Under current rules, these could not be worth more than R350 a year but it would be recommended that this be upped to R1 000.
Some MPs were rather disconcerted to hear that they would have to disclose the earnings and possessions of their spouses, even if they had an antenuptial contract. But they were again reassured that this information would be kept confidential.