Faith fails to show despite assurance
MEETING WILL NOW BE HELD NEXT WEEK Muthambi was due to explain to the committee allegations of irregular expenditure.
Public Service and Administration Minister Faith Muthambi and her department’s director-general Mashwahle Diphofa will be subpoenaed by the parliamentary portfolio committee on public service and administration for their failure to attend yesterday’s meeting.
Both Muthambi and Diphofa, who is the department’s accounting officer, and officials from the National School of Government and Centre for Public Service Innovation, were a noshow at the committee meeting yesterday despite Muthambi’s undertaking that she would attend the gathering.
Only officials from the Public Service Commission led by Advocate Richard Sizani attended.
Meanwhile, some ANC members belonging to the party’s study group on public service and administration boycotted the committee sitting in protest against Dr Makhosi Khoza. The members said they would not attend the committee meeting until their grievances against Khoza had been addressed by the ANC.
But ANC chief whip Jackson Mthembu condemned the members, saying that study groups do not have the authority to suspend any work they are deployed to do in parliament.
“The suspension of any of these meetings and/or failure to attend meetings individually and collectively constitutes gross ill-discipline on their part,” Mthembu said.
“The matter of Dr Makhosi Khoza is being dealt with at an organisational level through the constitutional processes of the organisation. We therefore con- demn today’s behaviour with utmost contempt.”
Khoza is among the ANC MPs who called for President Jacob Zuma to step down and because of her stance is presumed to be among those who voted against Zuma in the recent motion of no confidence.
Committee members who attended agreed that Muthambi and Diphofa must pay the cost of the sitting.
The meeting had to be postponed until next week.
Muthambi on Monday announced that she would go to the meeting in order to set the record straight regarding allegations that took a group of 30 people, including friends and family members, to attend her department’s budget speech in parliament early this year.
It amounts to gross ill-discipline on their part.