Publication: Sunday Times Issued: Date: 2006-12-10 Reporter: Shanthini Naidoo

Yengeni Wants Parliament to Pay Legal Bills

 

Publication 

Sunday Times

Date

2006-12-10

Reporter

 Shanthini Naidoo

Web Link

www.sundaytimes.co.za

 

Tony Yengeni has asked Parliament to pay the costs for a Constitutional Court challenge of his criminal conviction ­ a move that could have implications for all members of Parliament.

Themba Langa, an attorney for the former ANC chief whip, said he had sent a letter to Secretary of Parliament, Zingile Dingani, requesting funding.

Yengeni’s new legal bid is based on a defunct law, Section 58 of the Powers and Privileges Act of 1963, which granted MPs immunity from civil or criminal proceedings, arrest, imprisonment or damages.

Langa said Yengeni was convicted before this Act was repealed in 2004.

Yengeni pleaded guilty *1 to fraud after receiving a discount on a Mercedes-Benz from a bidder in the arms deal. At the time, he was chairman of Parliament’s joint standing committee on defence, which played an important part in the government’s decision to spend billions on the arms package.

He began serving a jail sentence at the Western Cape’s Malmesbury Prison in August.

Langa said in the letter to Parliament that Yengeni’s conviction was “unconstitutional” because the now defunct Act had been in force at the time of the fraudulent deal.

Langa said: “Tony is relatively young, he is a politician. If this conviction stands, it will deny him a prominent role in politics or in business.”

People with convictions are not allowed to serve on boards of directors or be members of Parliament.

The letter also said that Yengeni could not afford to pay his bills because he was in jail.

Parliamentary spokesman Luzuko Jacobs said: “ We have received the letter and it is receiving due consideration.” He would not say if the Speaker of Parliament, Baleka Mbete, had received the letter.

Mbete recently referred to Yengeni as a “comrade” and said she did not believe that he had defrauded Parliament.

Commenting on Yengeni’s case during an interview with the Sunday Times, Mbete denied that she had diminished the image of Parliament by recently seeing Yengeni off to prison .

“If you approach Tony as a fraudster, of course you would then have that view *2. I don’t. Maybe this is an area where we must agree to disagree: I don’t see Tony as a fraudster *3. But I saw a comrade who is being locked up at a time when (Dr Wouter) Basson *4 is all over the place and I’m wondering: what the hell is this? ” she said.

Mbete said she had checked with colleagues and officials and was convinced that Yengeni had not broken any parliamentary regulation when he accepted a discount on the car.

“The system here has never highlighted and said MPs must disclose discounts. Not Tony, not any of us have ever had it in our consciousness that once you get a discount, you must come and disclose. From that perspective, I question the view that says he defrauded Parliament because he did not disclose a discount,” she said.

­ Additional reporting by Brendan Boyle

With acknowledgements to Shanthini Naidoo and Sunday Times.


*1       Yengeni was not convicted of fraud after receiving a discount on a Mercedes-Benz from a bidder in the arms deal.

Otherwise there would have been another two dozen or so arms dealers in prison for the same crime.

Yengeni was convicted of fraud after falsifying documents concerning the discount he received on a Mercedes-Benz from a bidder in the arms deal. This included the false uttering that the vehicle was damaged.


*2      Of course.


*3      He pleaded guilty - he is guilty - idiot.


*4      He was found not guilty - he is not guilty - idiot.