Parliament needs an ethics watchdog with sharper teeth

21 August 2013 - 02:39 By The Times Editorial
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The Times Editorial: The ANC should make sure that parliament gets the support it needs to review the sanctions available to it for punishing misconduct by its members.

The ruling party, which has seen one of its MPs, Dina Pule, publicly rebuked by National Assembly Speaker Max Sisulu for misleading parliament and breaching the executive's code of ethics, yesterday said it would support suggestions that the sanctions available to parliament be reconsidered.

Though parliament's Ethics Committee did a sterling job in investigating the former communications minister, its powers are severely limited and it can impose only mild sanctions.

If we are to send a clear message to those who abuse their legislative powers to line their pockets, parliament, and the provincial legislatures, must be in a position to fire offenders and bar them from public service.

Though the Pule scandal has been referred to law-enforcement agencies, she remains an MP and, after only a month, will regain all the privileges that come with the position.

With public trust in the government waning, and taxpayers being squeezed to fund forever-expanding public projects, corrupt government officials should be made to pay the highest price.

We fully agree with Speaker Sisulu when he told Pule, and by extension other MPs, that a great amount of trust had been placed in her as an MP and that her duty was to chart a course that would lead to a better life for South Africans. As members of parliament, she was told, "we do [this] by protecting our national assets and by ensuring, in an open and transparent manner, that these assets are used only in the public interest and not for private gain."

Those who colluded with the disgraced Pule to rob us should be dealt with, but for now she must leave parliament and never return.

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