Former mayor Faku loses MP seat

Former Buffalo City mayor and ANC MP Zukisa Faku has lost her seat in parliament, the party’s chief whip Jackson Mthembu announced yesterday.

This follows Faku’s sentencing to three years of house arrest and community service, on charges of fraud and theft at the East London Regional Court on Tuesday.

Faku was found guilty of nine counts of fraud and theft and will perform community service at a Cambridge old-age home. She unlawfully spent R15000 on the municipality’s credit card in 2009, to buy a leather jacket and perfume while on an official visit to Turkey. She also admitted to the use of the card to buy food at KFC and other items at Spitz.

Speaking during a press conference in parliament, Mthembu said: “Corruption is a cancer that eats away our moral fibre as society and represents a serious onslaught against the public confidence in its public representatives.

“We agree with the judge in the case that the conduct of comrade Faku, which includes abuse of the municipal credit card when she was Buffalo City mayor, was abusive of her position of trust,” he said.

The constitution states that an MP automatically loses their membership of the House if they have been convicted of an offence and sentenced to more than 12 months imprisonment without the option of a fine.

The former ANC Buffalo City Metro regional chairwoman will be under house arrest except for Mondays and Fridays between 6am and 5pm, and Sunday between 8am and 12pm. The judge said Faku may not leave her home on Saturdays.

Mthembu said the party would begin the process of finding a replacement for Faku in parliament soon.

She was sentenced on the day that the SABC board announced its decision to appoint the controversial Hlaudi Motsoeneng as its executive head of corporate affairs.

Mthembu criticised the board’s decision to appoint Motsoeneng and called for a parliamentary inquiry into their conduct.

He said the protection Motsoeneng enjoyed at the public broadcaster was not coming from the ANC.

Mthembu said he was “gravely concerned” about the situation at the public broadcaster as their “shenanigans” were cause for embarrassment.

He said the board’s latest move, to reappoint Motsoeneng into a position that had not been advertised, following a damning judgment by the Supreme Court of Appeal, was unlawful and disrespected the rule of law. He said the board should immediately rescind the decision.

He also said the party would be calling for an official parliamentary inquiry into the fitness of the board to hold office.

“It is clear that this board is failing spectacularly to exercise its fiduciary obligations,” he said

Last month, DA member of the portfolio committee on communications, Phumzile van Damme, called for a similar inquiry, and while the committee originally seemed to agree, they later backtracked and said that they would rather call the board to appear before them first.

The board is due to appear before the committee next Wednesday but Mthembu said given their latest “mess-ups” this was no longer sufficient.

Should the inquiry find wrongdoing, the committee can recommend that the board be dissolved. This recommendation would be made to the appointing authority – which in the case of SABC board members, is President Jacob Zuma.

Questioned about why Motsoeneng had been able to continue his run at the SABC for so long, and whether he enjoyed ANC protection, Mthembu said, “I have no idea who is protecting him, but I know it is not the ANC”.

He said Motsoeneng had also not been deployed by the party.

“I can give you the records of the deployment commission and you will not find Hlaudi there. There are many people that could be deployed who could do a wonderful job, but I can’t say the same about him,” he said.

Mthembu also questioned how Motsoeneng had managed, as a “non-employee”, to find himself appointed to the position of executive of corporate affairs, a job that had never been advertised.