Opposition says he must answer for breaches of law as it applies to cabinet
- Parliamentary Editor

Cape Town - The pressure continued to mount on Defence Minister Mosiuoa Lekota yesterday when the Democratic Alliance (DA) formally requested the public protector to investigate his failure to manage his business interests according to the Executive Members' Ethics Act.

While Lekota has speedily appeared before Parliament's ethics committee and it recommended a punishment for his failure to include business interests in his annual declaration, the DA believes he still has to answer for breaches of the law as it applies to members of the cabinet.

Last weekend his party, the African National Congress (ANC), decided the matter would be considered by a party disciplinary committee.

DA chief whip Douglas Gibson handed the complaint to public protector Lawrence Mushwana's office yesterday.

Earlier this week, Gibson warned that if the Lekota matter was not reported to the public protector by President Thabo Mbeki, he would do so himself.

In his letter to Mushwana, Gibson points out that the act requires ministers either to dispose of business interests or to place them under someone else's control within two months of being appointed. He said that the application of this act and the executive members' code of conduct were entirely separate from the code for MPs, which was handled by the ethics committee.

He pointed out that the law says that when a complaint is received from either the president, a member of the National Assembly or a permanent member of the National Council of Provinces, the public protector is required to investigate.

Parliament's ethics committee found that Lekota had indeed been negligent in completing his declaration of members' interests but that there had been no intent to mislead Parliament. It recommended that he be fined seven days' salary (about R14000) and receive a written reprimand from National Assembly speaker Frene Ginwala. The assembly still needs to ratify the recommendation.

The ANC's national executive committee (NEC) said last Sunday that following the finding of the ethics committee "on the failure of ANC national (chairman) Mosiuoa Lekota to declare certain of his interests, the NEC agreed that this matter should be referred to the national disciplinary committee".

With acknowledgements to Wyndham Hartley and the Business Day.