Under-fire social development minister Sisisi Tolashe says she registered the two luxury BAIC vehicles donated by Chinese officials in her children’s names to prevent them from being seized.
Tolashe told the ANC’s integrity commission this week that keeping the donations in her family was merely to “safeguard” them, as they risked being attached if they were registered with the ANC Women’s League (ANCWL) she leads, should there be an order freezing the league’s assets.
In a letter dated April 17 to the commission’s chair, Rev Frank Chikane, which has been seen by the Sunday Times, Tolashe insists that, because of financial difficulties, assets registered with the ANC and its leagues are at constant risk of being attached. She therefore took the decision not to register the vehicles with the party.
“In such circumstances, it is not uncommon that particular care is taken to ensure that donated assets are held in a manner that protects them from unintended consequences, including attachment, execution or other processes that may compromise their intended use.”
Though the cars, together worth R1m, were not registered in the name of the ANCWL, she argued she did not declare them as her own in parliament because they belonged to the women’s organisation.
Tolashe’s explanation to the integrity commission comes after ActionSA laid criminal charges against her for allegedly misleading parliament by failing to declare the donations as required by the legislature.
I did not acquire the vehicles in question for personal benefit or enrichment. I did not, at any stage, derive any personal or financial benefit from those vehicles —
— Sisisi Tolashe, social development minister
In a response to a parliamentary question earlier this year, Tolashe said the cars were a donation to the ANCWL, but the organisation has previously denied any knowledge of them.
The Daily Maverick reported last month that the cars were registered in the names of her children.
“I did not acquire the vehicles in question for personal benefit or enrichment. I did not, at any stage, derive any personal or financial benefit from those vehicles,” said Tolashe.
“I did not mislead parliament or any institution specifically. The assets do not belong to me. They are the assets of the ANCWL. At all material times, I acted in good faith and on the basis of the information available to me.
“And my understanding, at the time of responding to parliament, was that the vehicles were associated [with] and were in fact owned by the [ANCWL] and did not constitute personal assets requiring disclosure in my personal capacity.”
Tolashe has urged the commission to consider several facts before making a determination on her conduct, including that the ANCWL has not consolidated its assets over the years, including those held by its former leaders.
She argued that the ANCWL has, over time, failed to keep track of its assets in a centralised management system, leading to failures to trace assets, both movable and immovable, under its ownership.
“It is also necessary to note that the relevant period arose within a broader organisational environment in which structures of the ANC were exposed to serious financial risk, including threats of attachment of assets, execution against movable property, the freezing of bank accounts, and public threats of liquidation, which persist to date,” she said.
“These were not abstract concerns. They were matters that had become part of the lived legal and organisational reality of ANC structures, and they necessarily informed the manner in which organisational assets were viewed and safeguarded.”
These were not abstract concerns. They were matters that had become part of the lived legal and organisational reality of ANC structures, and they necessarily informed the manner in which organisational assets were viewed and safeguarded
— Sisisi Tolashe
“While I do not suggest that the [ANCWL] was itself the subject of a proved liquidation order, it is nevertheless material that the league operated within this wider environment of financial vulnerability and institutional exposure.
“In circumstances where the ANCWL also faced historical challenges in the consolidation and traceability of its own assets, considerations relating to the protection and preservation of assets for organisational purposes would have been both rational and bona fide,” said Tolashe.
Meanwhile, Maropene Ramokgopa, her fellow cabinet colleague and minister of monitoring and evaluation, who faces similar allegations, denied receiving the cars.
While she confirmed her family members and those of her partner owned BAIC cars, they were not donated by the Chinese, she said.
“I have not received any cars in my capacity as either the second [deputy secretary-general] of the ANC or in my finer capacity as the then co-ordinator of the ANCWL national task team from any foreign government,” Ramokgopa told the Sunday Times.
She blamed infighting in the department of social development as the reason her name had been dragged into the matter.
Ramokgopa claims that, as chair of the cabinet’s inter-ministerial committee on the South African Social Security Agency, she has faced pushback on her stance that social grants should be paid by major banks and not Postbank, arguing that the state-owned bank lacked the necessary capacity.
She suggested that officials who may be facing serious charges pursuant to investigations being carried out in the department of social development may be behind the allegations against her.
Chikane declined to comment.
Would you like to comment on this article?
Sign up (it's quick and free) or sign in now.
Please read our Comment Policy before commenting.