Pretoria – Deputy President Paul Mashatile must account for himself after he failed to declare a diamond gifted to his wife by controversial businessman Louis Liebenberg, says President Cyril Ramaphosa.
Speaking at the Union Buildings in Pretoria yesterday after the swearing-in of Acting Police Minister Firoz Cachalia, Ramaphosa made it clear that the responsibility to respond lies with Mashatile himself.
“I can’t answer for him and he has answers for all his matters.
“We will need to wait for him to provide answers to all these questions. Only he can answer them. So let’s wait for that, and then we take the process from there,” Ramaphosa said.
Earlier this week, Parliament’s Joint Committee on ethics and members’ interests imposed a R10 000 fine on Mashatile for failing to declare the diamond in the confidential section of his financial interests register.
The fine follows a formal complaint by the DA.
Mashatile had defended his actions by stating he had been awaiting an appraisal to confirm the diamond’s authenticity and value before disclosing it.
However, the committee concluded that this did not exempt him from his duty to declare the gift.
Yesterday, Mashatile confirmed that the diamond in question was handed over to the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA).
This followed Liebenberg’s arrest last year on charges including fraud, theft, racketeering and money laundering.
“They did verify its authenticity and the price so that we can then declare it once we have all that information,” he told the media while attending a government service delivery programme in North West.
“In the course of that, then we found out that the person who made the donation we’re not quite happy with. I then said maybe it should be given to the authorities.”
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