Still no clear answers over MEC's sprees

THERE is still no clear explanation from Gauteng finance MEC Paul Mashatile's office of his spending sprees with his official credit card.

Instead of answering the questions posed to him, Mashatile's spokesman, Percy Mthimkulu, sent a letter to The Times yesterday accusing the newspaper of conducting a campaign against the MEC and himself.

He initially claimed our reports on Mashatile's two dinner binges at the Auberge Michel restaurant resulted from "a double reporting of the same event".

The first of the dinners, on June 23 last year, cost R96375. After the second, just weeks later, on August 15, Mashatile swiped his state credit card for R108229.

Mthimkulu has yet to explain how the records, provided by his own department to the auditor-general and the Gauteng legislature, could be wrong.

This comes after an audit of Mashatile's credit card showed that nearly R200000 in expenses had not been declared.

The audit also found that Mashatile had spent a fair amount of money at Auberge Michel, in Sandton.

"Expenses to Auberge Michel were totalled to R266487. All items highlighted in green," says page 27 of the report.

Mashatile's department initially declared expenditure of R217620 on his credit card for 2006, but auditors found that the real amount was R408685.

The Times based its reports on the audited statement of Mashatile's credit card. Mthimkulu denied any concealed expenditure on the card, but later explained that the understatement of expenses was "an innocent clerical error".

The Times tried to clear up with Mthimkulu how it was possible for him to deny that Mashatile returned to the restaurant on August 15 2006, when the transaction was disclosed in the audited statement as an "omitted expense".

We have yet to receive answers to detailed questions sent to him.

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