National Assembly Speaker Frene Ginwala is fuming after discovering that a parliamentary committee had the members' interests register destroyed.

This would have been a key document in proving whether former transport minister Mac Maharaj declared a R300 000 donation to his wife.

"I just find it unbelievable and unacceptable that a committee could have taken such a decision - that they felt they could do such a thing. They should have brought it to the house and they never did," Ginwala said.

Ginwala made the discovery when Maharaj - who is under investigation by the elite Scorpions unit - called her to complain that records of his declarations to parliament had been destroyed.

"Mr Maharaj contacted me to tell me that he was quite concerned because he contacted the registrar of members' interests, only to be told that the records were destroyed. That was the first time I heard about it," said Ginwala.

She would discuss the matter at the rules committee meeting today, comprising all the chief whips of parties, the presiding officers and management, and a decision would have to be made about how long the records should be kept for.

The registrar of members' interests, Faziela Mahomed, said the committee had made the decision on August 19, 1997 and all confidential records from 1996, when the register first started, to 1998 had been destroyed after the 1999 elections.

"From '99 onwards we have all the records and the public record from '96 is available," said Mahomed.

The confidential section applied to the interests of MPs' spouses, as well as any remuneration MPs received during their term of office, she said.

Maharaj - who resigned from FirstRand Bank last week - and his wife Zarina are under investigation for money they allegedly received from Schabir Shaik, deputy President Jacob Zuma's financial adviser.

Ginwala was further angered after parliament's ethics committee was unable to meet for a second time yesterday because not enough MPs turned up to form a quorum.

Ginwala charged that political parties appeared to be committed to ethics for MPs only when they could gain mileage from publicity, but did not take the work of the committee seriously.

"Political parties don't think ethics are important if they don't make newspaper headlines - it's not about headlines, it's about how parties handle these issues," she said.

Ginwala is expected to vent her anger in parliament's rules committee this morning after discovering that "the last two meetings of the committee did not have a quorum".

The committee was yesterday to have reconsidered the decision to destroy the members' register.

With acknowledgements to Jeremy Michaels and the Cape Times.