‘What bribes? Not me,’ Mapisa-Nqakula rebuffs allegations

While opposition political parties have called for her immediate investigation and removal, National Assembly Speaker Nosiviwe Mapisa-Nqakula yesterday firmly denied any involvement in corruption during her time as minister of defence and military veterans.

According to a statement released by parliament on behalf of the office of the speaker, Mapisa-Nqakula expressed deep concern about the allegations, which included “a purported affidavit by one of the department’s former service providers, all of which she only learned about through the Sunday Times”.

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“The speaker believes investigations of this nature ought to be conducted with the utmost diligence and respect for due process and, accordingly, finds the manner in which this purported investigation has been conducted and shared with the media highly objectionable,” parliament stated.

“Throughout her public service career, the speaker has upheld the highest standards of integrity and ethical conduct and has fiercely advocated against corruption, which she continued to regard as a direct threat to the principles of democracy and good governance.”

The allegations

Mapisa-Nqakula was accused of taking bribes totalling R2.3 million from a South African National Defence Force (SANDF) contractor when she was the minister of defence.

Implicated in a sworn affidavit submitted to the Independent Police Investigative Directorate by Nombasa Ntsondwa-Ndhlovu, the owner of Umkhombe Marine, a freight and logistics company that reportedly scored R210 million in SANDF tenders in 2019.

Ntsondwa-Ndhlovu reportedly indicated that she gave bundles of cash to Mapisa-Nqakula on 10 occasions between November 2016 and July 2019. Independent political analyst Goodenough Mashego said the allegations against Mapisa-Nqakula were not surprising and might be “smoke from a fire that was already there”.

Mashego claimed – not specifically in reference to Mapisa-Nqakula – that many people benefited from the defence force, but did not deliver services.

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“Those so-called accidents that happened at the military base in Lohatla, the deaths we see now happening in the DRC deployment, are speaking very much to the defence force capacity and to defence force’s spending,” he said.

“All the money that was spent in the defence force since Mapisa-Nqakula was minister, where did it go? Because it did not buy capacity. Our national defence force is easily killed in the DRC. We also need to remember when many were killed in the Central African Republic.”

“We have a defence force which has become a feeding trough for highly placed people and you cannot feed off the defence force if you don’t work closely with the minister of defence and the people in defence.”

‘Committed to cooperate fully’

Parliament noted that Mapisa-Nqakula was committed to cooperate fully with any formal investigation of the allegations.

Democratic Alliance (DA) chief whip Siviwe Gwarube said the DA would lodge a complaint with the joint committee on ethics and members’ interests in order to get a “thorough and expeditious investigation” launched into the allegations, joining the Economic Freedom Fighters in calling for her removal.

The ANC national executive committee yesterday held a special meeting after the party’s integrity commission issued a report which recommended over 90 members implicated in corruption and widespread state capture be excluded from the party’s election candidate lists.

Five of the 97 members mentioned in the document were cleared by the ANC’s integrity commission, while 62 others have been referred for disciplinary hearings.

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Mashego added that this was a time when the country would see the real ANC. “You cannot come up with integrity committees and stepaside when somebody has stolen money from the department of health. You cannot subject them to a party committee.

“Those people need to be referred to the National Prosecuting Authority because renewal is when justice is seen to be done.”

“The ANC has gone into every election with all its scandals known. People have repeatedly voted for the ANC irrespective of what it has done,” Mashego said.

“Whatever comes out implicating the ANC, I don’t see it really making a dent.”