While English football club Tottenham Hotspur prepare to play Leicester City this weekend, one would presume the team has led to a hunt for whistle-blowers in SA Tourism.
The news that SA Tourism was planning to sponsor the English football team with a R1bn three-year agreement has spiralled into a game of finger-pointing where SAT board CFO Johan van der Walt could be found offside after allegations he may have had dealings with companies that stood to benefit from the proposed deal.
Three board members — Enver Duminy, Ravi Nadasen and Rosemary Anderson — resigned when the scandal came to the fore, and it is these three the SA Tourism board is pursuing, in the hopes of uncovering whether they made public the documents that related to a meeting about this deal.
This move has irked tourism minister Lindiwe Sisulu, who has confirmed there is no deal with the English football team.
She instead charged the board to go after the CFO — the person who would have allegedly benefited should the deal have done through.
This R1bn deal would have gone towards printing a message about SA on the club’s jerseys, as part of a campaign to get millions of people around the world who watch the league to visit South Africa.
While Sisulu has made a few questionable moves in the past, her slamming the board for going after the whistle-blowers of supposed corruption is correct.
People should not be pursued and persecuted when they do the public a great service.
In a time when SA has had dodgy outcomes when it comes to whistle-blowers, case-in-point, Babita Deokaran — who was assassinated after exposing corruption in the health department — we agree with Sisulu.
People should not be pursued and persecuted when they do the public a great service.
If, by any chance, these three board members were indeed behind the leak, which potentially saved a R1bn of taxpayer money, they should be commended and given their jobs back — along with a raise.
These are the sort of people we need within our government ranks. Had we had people of such character, people of integrity, the country would not find itself in this pit. Load-shedding and a string of dubious deals, exposed through the state capture inquiry, would have never occurred.
In the same breath, we cannot ignore the drama caused by Sisulu before the portfolio committee meeting in parliament on Tuesday, where she was called to account for these shenanigans.
Sisulu’s late arrival at the meeting, and seemingly leaving early only to return, is not something to be taken lightly.
At this meeting Sisulu was read the riot act by Tandi Mahambehlala, the portfolio chairperson on this dubious deal.
Mahambehlala’s insistence that the deal with Spurs is off, is what South Africans weary of government duplicity and corruption wanted to hear.
What South Africans don’t want to hear — and certainly what ought to be avoided — is that their taxes will be used to conduct a needless witch-hunt.
This should not be countenanced.
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.