Faith faces fireworks in finance briefing
PUBLIC Service and Administration Minister Faith Muthambi is expected to come under close scrutiny today when she appears before the portfolio committee that plays oversight on her department.
Muthambi is heading a delegation of her department and its entities that will brief the public service and administration portfolio committee on the finances for the last quarter of 2016-17 and the first quarter of 2017-18.
But weekend reports about her hiring friends and family members as support staff in her new portfolio without following public service prescripts are likely to take centre stage.
The reports have sparked threats from the DA to report Muthambi to the joint committee on ethics and members’ interests, which also meets today.
A Sunday newspaper reported that the minister had hired 27 people as support staff in her office after being moved from communications portfolio in the midnight reshuffle by President Jacob Zuma.
This came hot on the heels of initial reports that she flew friends and family members from other parts of the country to Cape Town at taxpayers’ expense to attend her budget speech vote in May.
When the reports first surfaced, the committee had shown interest in getting answers on the expenditure, and promised to probe the allegations of unfair recruitment processes.
There were also calls for Muthambi to pay back the money spent on flying people to Cape Town.
Yesterday, committee chairperson Makhosi Khoza confirmed that Muthambi would appear before the committee.
“I’m unable to say how the meeting will unfold,” Khoza said. “Let’s afford her an opportunity to come to the meeting. I don’t want to be accused of not affording the minister an opportunity (to explain herself).”
Muthambi’s ministry has since responded sharply to the “misleading” reports.
“The ministry would like to put it on record that none of the support staff mentioned in the reports are friends or relatives of the minister,” the statement said.
It dismissed suggestions that Muthambi did not follow prescripts when appointing staff.