SA parties want election chief out Bantu Holomisa
Bantu Holomisa

Bantu Holomisa

JOHANNESBURG/CAPE TOWN. — Opposition parties filed an urgent application in the Electoral Court yesterday over their demand that IEC chairperson Pansy Tlakula must resign, UDM leader Bantu Holomisa said.
“The papers have been served with the Electoral Court at 15:15 this afternoon (yesterday) according to our lawyers,” he said.

“Everything from the side of the opposition parties was finalised earlier and we signed the documents.”

Holomisa said he did not have more information at the time.

Opposition parties had given Tlakula until the close of business on Monday to respond to their call for her to step down.

On Tuesday, Holomisa said she had not responded to them, which showed “how arrogant” she was.

Earlier this month, the parties said they were worried about the credibility of the 7 May elections. The parties met IEC management.

Parties calling for her resignation were the United Democratic Movement, the African Christian Democratic Party, the Congress of the People, Agang SA and the Economic Freedom Fighters.

The Inkatha Freedom Party was originally named on the list of opposition parties but on Monday it said it was not part of the group.

The Azanian People’s Organisation and the United Christian Democratic Party were also initially part of the group, but were not listed as applicants on the court papers.

Agang SA and the EFF had both indicated on Monday that they were still supporting the call for Tlakula to resign.

Last month, a forensic investigation by auditors PriceWaterhouseCoopers on behalf of the National Treasury on the procurement of the IEC’s Riverside Office Park building in Centurion, Pretoria found that the process was neither fair, transparent, or cost-effective.

It also found that Tlakula did not give guidance or formally inform various people what was expected of them in the process.

Tlakula has maintained that the report did not accuse her of corruption.

The Treasury report followed a recommendation from Public Protector Thuli Madonsela in her own report into the matter, released in August 2013.

Madonsela found Tlakula had played a “grossly irregular” role in procuring the premises.

She recommended that Parliament consider taking action against Tlakula.

The complaint against Tlakula to Madonsela was lodged by Holomisa. Tlakula was CEO at the time the complaint was lodged.

The African National Congress on Tuesday said the call for Tlakula to resign was not genuine and based on the desire by some parties to delegitimise the elections.

Meanwhile, there are no plans to legally challenge Public Protector Thuli Madonsela’s report on Nkandla, ANC national chairperson Baleka Mbete said yesterday.

“We have not taken such a decision,” she told reporters in Cape Town.

There were also no plans to take action against Police Minister Nathi Mthethwa for his role in the security upgrades at President Jacob Zuma’s private Nkandla homestead in KwaZulu-Natal.

“Again, we have taken no such decision.”

Madonsela found that Mthethwa’s declaration of the homestead as a national key point amounted to improper conduct and maladministration.

This finding formed part of her final report, released last month, on the security upgrades totalling R246m.

She found that Zuma and his family unduly benefited from the upgrades, and said Zuma should pay back a portion of the cost.

Mbete said Madonsela’s report and a report released by government’s task team were largely similar in context, and that Zuma was found to have not lied to Parliament.

The ANC agreed that the escalating cost of Nkandla had to be probed because there was “too much of this culture” in government, and the public works department in particular.

However, it believed some of Madonsela’s remarks amounted to interference in terms of African tradition.

“A lot was clarified, in fact, by Thuli’s report. She then goes on to say a few things which, in our view, are actually debatable because in the African tradition you don’t interfere with a man’s kraal.

“The issue of a man’s kraal or a kraal of a family is a holy space.”

She said security experts had looked at his KwaZulu-Natal home from a security perspective and shifted it in such a way that did not benefit the family.

“And Thuli says: ‘No, they benefited and, therefore, President Zuma ought to think of paying some money’. We beg to differ very strongly, very, very strongly.”  — Sapa.

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