Pretoria - It was a lean year for gifts for MPs and ministers - even though the Gupta family wedding and Durban businessman Vivian Reddy’s birthday party do feature.
Some MPs don’t seem to even own a home, according to the 2013 Register of Members’ Interests.
Released on Wednesday, the financial disclosures of parliamentarians detail Deputy President Kgalema Motlanthe’s gifts of CDs, books, several ties, many pens, a black “Brothers for Life” T-shirt and the Moet champagne and crystal glasses invitation to Reddy’s 60th birthday bash in February.
The luxurious party invite was also declared by Trade and Industry Minister Rob Davies and International Relations Minister Maite Nkoana-Mashabane.
Davies and IFP president Mangosuthu Buthelezi both declared as gifts their accommodation at the Gupta family wedding in Sun City in May. And Correctional Services Minister Sbu Ndebele declared an invitation to the Gupta wedding “in box with canisters of tea”, valued at R800, while Nkoana-Mashabane detailed the invite to the same wedding as one “with chocolates in silver dish”, valued at R600.
All MPs - ministers and deputy ministers, but not the president - must once a year declare their financial interests, directorships, income from outside work, sponsored travel and gifts valued over a certain threshold.
According to the rules, they must also publicly declare property and land, although the exact address is retained in the confidential section of the register.
But many MPs simply stated “nothing to disclose” when it came to the land and property section. This included ANC MP and traditional leader Nkosi Zwelivelile Mandla Mandela, who also had nothing to declare in sections on shares, travel, consultancies and pensions.
Once a record of luxurious gifts, including cattle, sheep, carpets and other goodies, the 2013 register of interests appears in line with the global economic troubles, although the Cape Town Jazz Festival and Durban July featured on many a parliamentarian’s declaration.
Deputy Higher Education Minister Mduduzi Manana certainly will not run out of pens - he received six executive pens.
National Planning Minister Trevor Manuel at least got two comedy DVDs to help him chuckle as the National Development Plan faces an uphill battle from unions and others.
Sports Minister Fikile Mbalula received a lot of clothes: two suits, pants, shirts and a soccer kit.
Nkoana-Mashabane received a Philippine dress, tequila, vodka, gin, shampoo and hand lotion, aside from books, moon cakes and “African materials”. Her deputies, Ebrahim Ebrahim and Marius Fransman, received a range of edible goodies, as well as a laptop and laptop bag respectively and tea, olive oil and booze.
Defence Minister Nosiviwe Mapisa-Nqakula declared a small gold elephant sculpture, Russian small dolls and “Moscow Rouge” perfume, alongside several plates which seem to be the preferred gift among defence forces worldwide.
Being the leader of the DA in Parliament has not clinched the goodies for Lindiwe Mazibuko: a leather satchel and some books and a Moleskin notebook, was what she declared.
However, Google UK did sponsor her travel to speak at one of its conferences, as did the Brenthurst Foundation and the Friedrich Naumann Foundation.
And Parliament’s two presiding officers, Max Sisulu and Mninwa Mahlangu, didn’t do too shabbily either. Among declared gifts are statues, tea, ties, paperweights, booze - and some travel to international conferences.
Sacked human settlement minister Tokyo Sexwale’s declaration features a set of surgical scrubs, wine, chocolates, books and a lumber- jacket and a scarf.
Cope MP Tozamile Botha leads the stakes in directorships, with 50 in areas including IT, engineering, farming and insurance, although several are described as “dormant”.
While ANC National Council of Provinces’s delegate Masefako Dikgale declared the donation of two tractors by the Limpopo agriculture department to a non-governmental organisation he monitors, but does not benefit from, and the promise by rural development to inject R2 million into the same project.
Pretoria News