Minister is fined seven days' salary
- Parliamentary Editor

Cape Town - Parliament's ethics committee recommended a rap on the knuckles yesterday for Defence Minister Mosiuoa Lekota for failing to disclose business interests, but the opposition Democratic Alliance (DA) is not prepared to let the matter rest.

In spite of a unanimous decision by the committee that Lekota receive a written reprimand and be fined seven days' salary, the DA threatened to report him to the public protector, a move that could have more serious consequences for the minister.

DA chief whip Douglas Gibson said the committee's decision did not end the matter because Lekota was a minister and his failure to declare his interests was also a breach of the Executive Members Ethics Code.

"It is inconceivable that during the whole period of the (Tony) Yengeni and (Winnie) Madikizela-Mandela affairs, minister Lekota was not once reminded to attend to his obligations in terms of the law," Gibson said, referring to two African National Congress (ANC) MPs caught out for not declaring gifts.

"This crosses the line from negligence to a willful failure. Ministers who simply ignore their legal obligations and who accept appointments, shares and benefits and fail to complete a simple form correctly should be fired."

"If (President Thabo Mbeki) does not dismiss the minister and fails to refer the whole matter to the public protector under the Executive Members Ethics Act, I shall do so," Gibson said.

The ANC chairman of the ethics committee, Luwellyn Landers, said Lekota had been found to have been negligent in making incomplete disclosures of his interests, but was not found to have willfully misled Parliament.

In disposing of the complaint against Lekota in less than a week, the committee has set something of a record for itself. The Madikizela-Mandela complaint dragged on for months with repeated failures for her to present herself before the body.

Lekota wrote to the committee and asked for an opportunity to appear before it. "The committee noted the promptness with which minister Lekota responded, his own admission of a casualness and his co-operative demeanour," Landers said.

With acknowledgements to Wyndham Hartley and the Business Day.