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<strong>south</strong> <strong>africa</strong><br />
public works<br />
Gwen’s woes mount as auditor-General<br />
details public works shambles<br />
After a brave but somewhat unconvincing media campaign that she was doing something about<br />
corruption, public works minister Gwen Mahlangu-Nkabinde has been told that the department she’s<br />
been leading for almost a year now is in disarray. By CARIEN DU PLESSIS.<br />
It wasn’t a good start to her anniversary<br />
month as minister for Gwen Mahlangu-<br />
Nkabinde. On Monday the final Public Works<br />
annual report landed on her table with the<br />
Auditor-General’s disclaimer in it; the report<br />
was also tabled in Parliament.<br />
Because ministers are required to sign<br />
annual reports, Mahlangu-Nkabinde<br />
would have known about it at least a<br />
couple of weeks ago, even before her recent<br />
announcement that the Special Investigating<br />
Unit had uncovered R3 billion of irregular<br />
tenders in her department, and that her<br />
staffers were all a bunch of lying, scheming<br />
slimeballs. (In fact, so little did she trust her<br />
staffers that she paid hundreds of thousands<br />
of rands each month for external media<br />
agencies to boost her department’s image,<br />
despite the department and ministry having<br />
a full communications team).<br />
She suspended the department’s directorgeneral<br />
in December last year, and then<br />
last month also suspended his acting<br />
replacement. She had also been blaming her<br />
predecessors a lot, saying she had inherited a<br />
“poisoned chalice”.<br />
Photo: Public Works Minister Gwen Mahlangu.<br />
tuesday - 4 october 2011
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