Sisulu’s explanation for R10m flower splurge nothing more than a smoke screen, says DA

The Democratic Alliance on Sunday accused Human Settlements Minister Lindiwe Sisulu of misleading the National Assembly and attempting to cover up the squandering of R10 million by her department.

The DA had noted the desperate attempt by the human settlements department to trivialise its spending of R10 million on flowers, gifts, and sponsorships during the 2013/14 financial year, DA spokesman Solly Malatsi said.

“Minister Lindiwe Sisulu now claims that the department spent the money on prizes for the Govan Mbeki Awards, but had not disclosed this in her reply to a DA parliamentary question.

“The minister’s failure to disclose this means she misled the National Assembly – a serious violation of rules which we will take to parliament’s ethics committee if need be. It also reaffirms our reasonable suspicion that some of the money went towards the ANC 2014 election campaign,” Malatsi said.

Nowhere in her reply did Sisulu attribute the extraordinary bill to the Govan Mbeki awards. She was only mentioning the awards now because “she wants to cover up the embarrassment of her department squandering R10 million that could have built at least 100 houses for poor South Africans in the hopes of protecting her infant campaign for the ANC presidency”.

The DA called on Sisulu to release publicly the names of individuals and organisations who received the flowers, gifts, and sponsorships, the exact amounts of money spent on each of them, and the reasons for doing so, as South Africans had a right to know whether their money was mismanaged or used to uplift them, Malatsi said.

READ THIS:

//