Durban - Hundreds of leather-bound copies of the South African constitution that had allegedly gone missing and were suspected stolen were, in fact, never missing, parliament said on Thursday.
An investigation was launched by speaker Thandi Modise following allegations that the books may have been stolen by MPs, who are restricted to one copy each.
"The report of the investigation into the alleged missing copies of the Constitution at the induction training for new National Assembly Members two weeks ago, which resulted in some MPs not receiving their copies, has concluded that a miscommunication amongst the support staff led to them erroneously reporting the copies as missing," said parliament via an emailed statement.
A box containing the copies, which were unused during the second day of the week-long induction programme, was, in fact, stored in a safe place, said the statement.
"Unfortunately, this fact was not immediately communicated to the team of staff responsible for supporting the induction the following day."
African News Agency (ANA)