Prasa: Peters suspended

President Cyril Ramaphosa has suspended Deputy Minister of Small Business Development Dipuo Peters for a month without pay, starting from Wednesday and ending on March 28.

Parliament’s joint committee on ethics and members’ interests brought the sanction against her for breaching the code of ethical conduct during her time as minister of transport.

Peters was hauled before the committee after three complaints were laid against her in September 2022.

The suspension comes after a complaint was lodged against Peters by #UniteBehind, a nonprofit organisation.

One of the complaints alleged that she had been neglectful in her previous role as transport minister by failing to appoint a group CEO of the Passenger Rail Agency of South Africa (Prasa).

According to the Parliamentary Monitoring Group, Peters’ defence before the commission of inquiry into state capture “indicated that she did not appoint a permanent group CEO because Prasa was not ready for a new group CEO”.

Prasa suffered a financial loss of R1.7 million, which was paid to the recruitment company because of Peters’ actions.

Adding to the fuel, the former minister dismissed the Prasa board – then led by former chair Popo Molefe – seemingly because it had revealed R14 billion of irregular expenditure and set in motion an investigations into corruption at the railway agency.

In 2017, the High Court in Pretoria ruled Peters’ behaviour in dissolving the board and trying to halt the investigations into Prasa corruption was irrational, unreasonable and unlawful.

Peters approved the use of Prasa buses for ANC events without payment from the party. As a result, Peters sat out one term of the parliamentary programme, as ruled by the committee.

“The member failed to act in accordance with the public trust placed in her and discharge her obligations, in terms of the constitution, to parliament and the public at large, by placing the public interest above her own interests,” the committee’s statement read.

Even though our Code of Ministerial Ethics must be one of the shortest books in South Africa, if not the world, Deputy Minister Dipuo Peters nevertheless went to town racking up violations of its rules. In her role as transport minister, back in the state capture heyday, Peters failed to appoint a group CEO of the Passenger Rail Agency of SA (Prasa), leading to wasted spending of R1.7 million on a recruitment agency to fill the position.

Then she fired the Prasa board – seemingly because it had revealed R14 billion of irregular expenditure and set in motion an investigation into corruption.

Finally, she allowed the use of Prasa buses to transport people to an ANC event.

That’s all serious, we would have thought. So did parliament when it suspended her for a full term with no pay.

But for our Defender against Corruption – who is also known as President Cyril Ramaphosa – Peters’ conduct was only awful enough to attract a one-month suspension (without pay, though) from her government job.

Is it any wonder, then, that comrades within the ANC are willing to send out hit squads to eliminate rivals for openings in the cadre deployment programme?

In a functioning, ethical democracy, she would be fired.