Owes more than R60 000 in rates and water

WHEN this week started, very few inside or outside Parliament had heard of ANC MP Mervyn Dirks, a backbencher who was elected to Parliament in 2014 from KwaZuluNatal.

This week Dirks became infamous after he was accused of threatening a female colleague with violence during the last plenary session of the National Assembly for this year.

Earlier in the week Dirks, along with six of his ANC colleagues, alleged in a “press conference” broadcast on ANN7 that their boss, Chief Whip Jackson Mthembu, had “colluded” with the DA over a debate in the National Assembly on state capture and slammed Parliament’s Eskom inquiry, and the inquiry’s leader of evidence, Ntuthuzelo Vanara.

The press conference was the subject of a complaint by Mthembu, who charged that he had been defamed without being given the right of reply.

Dirks, a former Msunduzi deputy mayor who as an MP earns more than R1 million a year, was fingered a few months ago for owing more than R60 000 on his municipal rates and water bill.

At the time he told The Witness that he had inherited most of this debt when the property was passed on to him from his deceased mother’s estate.

The Register of Members Interests indicates that Dirks is a director of eight companies and owns two properties in Pietermaritzburg. – Quinton

Mtyala