The Democratic Alliance (DA) will make a request under the Promotion of Access to Information Act for details on Defence Minister Nosiviwe Mapisa-Nqakula’s trip to the Democratic Republic of Congo…that involved the smuggling of Michelle Wege into South Africa”. The party‚ which “remains suspicious”‚ on Thursday said it wants “the passenger list for all legs of the trip; the cost of the flight; and the exact dates upon which the above details were finalised”.“We wish to know whether or not this ‘coincidence’ was really a hastily assembled plan to defraud the South African public‚” the DA’s Kobus Marais said. Minister in smuggling scandalA senior cabinet minister smuggled a foreign national with a false passport into South Africa on a state jet.Mapisa-Nqakula spokesperson Mike Ramagoma said this week that she had not gone to the DRC to fetch the woman‚ but had been in the country for work purposes.Mzilikazi Wa-Afrika‚ the journalist who wrote the Sunday Times story which revealed details of the mercy flight‚ told 702’s Redi Thlabi that the minister was actually meant to go to Addis Ababa‚ but made a detour to the DRC to fetch Wege.The DA’s Marais also attacked Mapisa-Nqakula’s justification of her action - that she was helping Wege “escape a life of abuse”.“Mapisa-Nqakula’s emphasising of the plight of Ms Wege as an excuse for illegal action is trivialising the terrible reality that many South African women face on a daily basis‚” he said.“While Ms Wege’s situation may have been dire‚ it has been reduced to a justification for the indefensible Minister’s actions.“The truth is that the minister could have used the many legal channels at her disposal to assist Ms Wege in her plight but chose to flout the law instead.”“Members of the executive cannot act as a law unto themselves‚ and misuse our very limited public resources in the process and we simply cannot stand for this abuse of power.”The Sunday Times had reported that Nqakula had flown from Waterkloof Air Force Base to the DRC to fetch Wege‚ on January 28‚ 2014.Wege had been detained by officials at Kinshasa International Airport 10 days prior‚ when she tried to board a South African Airways flight to Johannesburg.She was arrested for travelling using fraudulent documents‚ which had allegedly been organised by Mapisa-Nqakula's sister‚ Nosithembele Nontobeko Mapisa‚ who worked in the Burundi embassy at the time. - TMG Digital..