Phumzile+trip+shambles,+Business+Day




 * Business Day, 17 January 2006**

=Confusion deepens over Phumzile trip shambles=


 * Karima Brown, Vukani Mde, Hopewell Radebe and Rob Rose**

THE credibility of President Thabo Mbeki’s anticorruption stance hung in the balance yesterday in the face of the shambolic handling of a controversial taxpayer-funded R500000 holiday trip taken by his deputy, Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka, in December.

Government yesterday refused to answer allegations that Mlambo-Ngcuka may have taken top businessman Saki Macozoma and Thuthukile Mazibuko-Skweyiya, wife of Social Development Minister Zola Skweyiya, on her jaunt to Dubai, United Arab Emirates. However, presidential spokesman Murphy Morobe issued a terse statement denying that Skweyiya himself had travelled with the Mlambo-Ngcuka party.

There was apparent confusion in government and political circles yesterday about the management of the storm, with many departments referring media queries to the presidency.

Morobe’s two-line statement followed a week of media speculation and an uproar from opposition parties about the purpose of Mlambo-Ngcuka’s costly junket. Mlambo-Ngcuka also did not help matters last week when she was quoted suggesting that her trip had partly been for work purposes.

Morobe’s statement also fell short of expectations that the presidency would say who went with the deputy president on her holiday. Morobe and other senior aides refused to say whether Macozoma or Mazibuko-Skweyiya accompanied the deputy president. Neither Macozoma nor Mazibuko-Skweyiya returned calls.

The communications mess led chief government spokesman Joel Netshitenzhe to promise that a more comprehensive statement would be released today.

The drama around Mlambo-Ngcuka played itself out yesterday with Mbeki in Liberia to attend the inauguration of Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf as president.

Mbeki returns to the country today to face the damage done to his anticorruption stance by the woman he chose to replace his former deputy — who was fired over allegations of corruption.

A source last night said there was information which suggested that Mlambo-Ngcuka’s flight did not travel directly from Water-kloof Air Force base to her final destination in Dubai but may have stopped to pick up a mystery passenger. If this is true it would violate her travel benefit as Mlambo-Ngcuka is entitled to be flown only to her final destination, the source said.

Details about Mlambo-Ngcuka’s controversial trip have been steadily leaking to the media since the story first broke last week. The handling by government has been clumsy and unsure, with senior staff seemingly waiting for Mbeki’s return today for clarity.

Complicating things even further for Mlambo-Ngcuka is the threat of a parliamentary ethics inquiry if either Macozoma or Mazibuko-Skweyiya shared her South African Air Force flight.

The opposition Democratic Alliance (DA) yesterday vowed to ask questions in Parliament.

“If indeed a member of cabinet or their spouse accompanied the deputy president on the visit to the UAE, this would be a violation of the Handbook for Members of the Executive and Presiding Officers,” said the DA’s Gareth Morgan.

Morgan yesterday wrote to Parliament’s standing committee on public accounts chairman Themba Godi, asking for an investigation into the trip.

The Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) has also turned up the heat on Mlambo-Ngcuka, saying the trip was an extravagance and “an example of capitalist morality”.

Cosatu general secretary Zwelinzima Vavi yesterday called for an overhaul of the guidelines governing state benefits for members of the cabinet.

Vavi said while Cosatu accepted that senior government leaders were entitled to use state resources for official purposes, this should not extend to private holidays when ordinary people were required to pay their own way.

The possible presence of Macozoma and Mazibuko-Skweyiya during Mlambo-Ngcuka’s holiday has raised speculation that private business interests could have been a factor in the trip. This would raise the problem of the ruling party’s senior leaders having private business interests or close links with business.

Mazibuko-Skweyiya is a prominent businesswoman who is no stranger to controversy. She sits on the boards of 16 companies, and has interests in the oil and minerals sector — Mlambo-Ngcuka’s former ministerial portfolio.

She is also linked to Mlambo-Ngcuka through her ties to oil businessman and ANC benefactor Sandi Majali, who paid for renovations to the Skweyiyas’ home in 2003.

Mazibuko-Skweyiya has so far failed to answer questions about her role in the party-funding scandal dubbed Oilgate, where it was revealed that Majali bankrolled the ruling party’s 2004 election campaign through a R11m donation received from oil parastatal Petro SA.

An investigation by the weekly Mail & Guardian revealed that Mazibuko-Skweyiya had used a R65000 loan from Majali to renovate their Pretoria home.

Majali has also travelled with senior state officials — including minerals and energy director-general Sandile Nogxina — to the Middle East to secure lucrative oil contracts.

The latest debacle around the scandal-prone Mlambo-Ngcuka is likely to raise temperatures inside the ruling party and its alliance, where a battle for the succession is already raging.


 * From: http://www.businessday.co.za/articles/topstories.aspx?ID=BD4A139506**