An uproar has erupted after the alleged appointment of tainted former rural development and land affairs minister Gugile Nkwinti as chair of a ministerial advisory committee on water services.
DA MP Emma Powell said her party had it on good authority that that water affairs and sanitation minister Lindiwe Sisulu had appointed Nkwinti to chair her advisory committee on the stabilisation of the water sector.
But department spokesperson Sputnik Ratau said the process to appoint committee members was still in its infancy and had not yet been completed.
“People must just wait. In fact, some of the people mentioned [by the DA] have not been approached. The process to appoint members is still very much in its infancy. We shall leave it there for now.”
Nkwinti is a former minister of water and sanitation. In 2019, public protector advocate Busisiwe Mkhwebane found in a report that he had violated both the executive ethics code and the constitution.
In the report Mkhwebane found that Nkwinti, who was also rural development and land reform minister during the presidency of Jacob Zuma, “abused” his position as minister to benefit his friend and former ANC employee, Errol Velile Present.
According to Mkhwebane's finding, Nkwinti influenced his department to buy Bekendvlei farm for R97m in 2011, which was subsequently allocated to Present, who together with a business partner reportedly ran the farm into the ground and was ultimately evicted.
In 2018, Present was fired by the ANC after he was allegedly involved in a cash-in-transit heist.
On Thursday, Powell said Nkwinti’s appointment was linked to Sisulu’s term as minister and that he would “earn R2.4m per annum for working for a maximum of 15 days per month”.
“This is a travesty,” she said. The committee members that will serve under Nkwinti, among others, include radio presenter Putco Mafani, Mphumzi Mdekazi and Clifford Derrick, said Powell.
Former intelligence chief Mo Shaik resigned as Sisulu’s adviser in February to become a member of the advisory committee tasked with establishing water boards, setting up tariffs for water services and monitoring water services institutions, among others.
“These latest appointments take the SA people for fools, and spits in the face of all honest and hardworking citizens struggling to make ends meet in the face of our crumbling economy,” Powell said.
“The DA will once again write to the Public Service Commission imploring them to investigate, and we will proceed to mobilise South Africans to publicly oppose these appointments.”
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