Pule lied left, right and centre
Ex-minister must ’consider vacating her seat in parliament’
DINA Pule is a liar guilty of unlawful and improper conduct who must quit parliament and apologise to the Sunday Times.
That is according to public protector Thuli Madonsela, who investigated Pule’s dodgy antics, which were first exposed by this newspaper.
In a scathing provisional report seen by the Sunday Times, titled “A Course in Ethics”, Madonsela reveals that the former minister of communications repeatedly lied and cheated to ensure that her boyfriend, Phosane Mngqibisa, could plunder the public purse.
Pule’s successor as minister of communications, Yunus Carrim, said he could not comment on a provisional report.
“This would legitimise the leaking of the report. But believe me, we are most determined to act against corruption and misconduct in the department and the state-owned companies in our sector,” he said. Madonsela’s report finds that:
Pule’s R10-million sponsorship of the ICT Indaba in Cape Town, from which Mngqibisa paid himself R6-million, was an “unsolicited” and “unlawful donation” that he used to enrich himself;
Pule admitted to Madonsela that Mngqibisa was her lover while publicly denying any romantic ties with him;
Pule knew that her department had funded lavish overseas trips for Mngqibisa to which he was not entitled, promising to ensure the money was paid back; and
Pule and her staff lied to parliament, the auditor-general and the public protector’s office during the investigations against her.
The report finds Pule’s conduct to be “unlawful, grossly improper” and “unethical”.
Pule had previously repeatedly denied the affair with Mngqibisa, a married man and father of three, and accused the Sunday Times at a press conference of conducting a “smear campaign” and “a highly sophisticated plot to blackmail” her.
But when Madonsela interviewed Pule on June 28 this year
Pule must apologise to the Sunday Times ’for the persistent insults and denial of the truth’
following allegations published by the Sunday Times, the then minister admitted that “she and Mngqibisa had a romantic relationship” and that “he was not her spouse as he was married to someone else under civil law and was therefore not entitled to spousal benefits”.
In her report, Madonsela instructs Pule to apologise to the Sunday Times “for the persistent insults and denial of the truth that she eventually admitted to me on 28 June 2013”.
Madonsela says Department of Communications “records show that Pule nominated Mngqibisa as her official com- panion in [its] register”.
“I am satisfied that Pule knew that Mngqibisa was benefiting from privileges meant for spouses,” writes Madonsela.
The public protector also reports that Pule “offered to ensure that all departmental expenditure on Mngqibisa’s trip would be reimbursed before this investigation was finalised”.
The report recommended that Pule should “consider vacating her seat in parliament to minimise the damage” she caused by lying to the ethics committee and the South African public.
Madonsela also recommended that Pule apologise to businesswoman Carol Bouwer, who came up with the ICT Indaba concept, “for subjecting her to a hidden agenda placing her in an untenable position”, to former staff members at the department she placed “in an unethical situation involving persistent lies and deceit”, and to “parliament for persistently misleading this august consti- tutional pillar and never admitting the truth until the end”.
Madonsela’s investigation confirmed the Sunday Times exposé of the fact that Mngqibisa benefited financially from the ICT Indaba.
The report says: “I am also of the view that the amount of R10million provided by the Department of Communications created an excess of sponsorship money and made it possible for Mngqibisa to pay himself the amount of R6-million.
“If I am correct, it was laundered state money that Mngqibisa siphoned away and not MTN funds.”
The report finds that Pule’s having solicited sponsorships for the event “per se was not unlawful or improper”.
But Pule “should have been circumspect with regard to actively encouraging entities under her supervision to donate funds” because they would have found it hard to say no.
MTN contributed R15-million to the event and Vodacom and Telkom chipped in R5-million each.
A total of R40-million was raised for the indaba.
Pule, according to the report, also lied to Madonsela when she claimed that her affair with Mngqibisa had been over by the time he was involved with the event, and that “Pule’s conduct in this regard was unlawful and unethical”.
Their relationship created a “real and not just a potential conflict of interest” because Pule “chose Mngqibisa’s interests above those of her department and, ultimately, the state”.
The public protector advised “the law enforcement agencies already seized with the matter to proceed expeditiously on the matter already referred by parliament”.
Madonsela is expected to release her final report this week.
In August, parliament’s ethics committee found Pule guilty of “willfully misleading” the panel and failing “to observe the requirements of the code of conduct, both in the letter and spirit of the code”.
The committee rejected Pule’s evidence as “untrustworthy”. She was reprimanded, fined 30 days’ salary and suspended from parliament for 15 days.
Pule later offered a half-hearted apology in parliament, shedding what observers described as crocodile tears.