SA Parliament rogues’ gallery - the multiple MPs with a chequered past in the House of Dishonourable

The opening of the seventh Parliament will take place on 18 July, President Cyril Ramaphosa has confirmed. The 58 MPs from Jacob Zuma’s uMkhonto Wesizwe (MK) party sworn in this week means that the 400-strong National Assembly is now complete – and features quite a number of parliamentarians with chequered pasts.

It is not permissible for an individual to become a member of the National Assembly if they have previously been convicted of a criminal offence and sentenced to more than 12 months’ imprisonment without the option of a fine. This is in terms of Section 47 of the Constitution, but the prohibition falls away if more than five years have elapsed since the sentence was completed.

It was this Constitutional clause that prevented Zuma from leading his new party in Parliament. The time prescription element, however, is what permits Patriotic Alliance leader Gayton McKenzie to take up a seat in the National Assembly despite having been sentenced to about 15 years in jail for armed robbery in 1996.

The past stays in the past

Parliament has its own code of conduct with which MPs are expected to comply after taking their oath of office – but this only applies after they have been sworn in.

It was for this reason that Parliament could not take any action against newly sworn-in DA MP Renaldo Gouws in the wake of racist videos he made some years ago resurfacing – because the videos were posted prior to his becoming a member of the House.

The DA has since suspended Gouws, pending an investigation. Daily Maverick understands, however, that party insiders had raised concerns about Gouws’ offensive online behaviour on multiple occasions, but they had fallen on deaf ears among the members of the DA leadership, who appeared bedazzled by his online following.

The DA’s Federal Council chair, Helen Zille, has previously said that the party’s MP candidates undergo a gruelling vetting process with 11 steps in total, ranging from taking an exam and going through an interview process to public speaking tests.

With regard to Gouws’ fitness to be an MP, party director of communications Richard Newton subsequently told EWN: “We do have a very strict process of vetting people, but I think this may be one that got away.” Until the outcome of his disciplinary process, Gouws remains an MP.

The DA’s new parliamentary cohort also includes Bonginkosi Madikizela, sworn in as an MP for the first time earlier this month. Madikizela was the party’s Western Cape leader until April 2021, when Daily Maverick exposed the fact that he had lied about his qualifications, claiming a BCom in human resource management that he did not possess.

Zille told Daily Maverick at the time that Madikizela’s fraudulent action had escaped detection because, when he joined the DA leadership, the verification of qualifications was “not a routine matter, as it is today”.

Skeletons in every closet

All four of South Africa’s biggest political parties – based on the vote share after the 29 May national polls – have sworn in caucuses that include questionable characters.

Particular concerns have been raised about the late swearing-in of former sports, arts and culture minister Zizi Kodwa as an ANC MP, less than a month after he was arrested and appeared in court on charges of having unlawfully received benefits amounting to more than R1.6-million from businessman Jehan Mackay. Kodwa told journalists at Parliament on Tuesday that the reason he was not sworn in with other MPs on 14 June was simply that he had family matters to deal with.

Complicating the matter, however, is the ANC’s step-aside rule – which resulted in Kodwa resigning as sports minister after his arrest. At the time, ANC spokesperson Mahlengi Bhengu-Motsiri told City Press: “It is in line with the step-aside rule, which makes it clear that, when criminally charged, a member must step aside.”

Kodwa’s subsequent swearing-in as an MP has caused a mini firestorm for the ANC and its internal factions, with some saying it is evidence of the party’s inconsistent application of the step-aside rule. Alliance partner Cosatu and the ANC Veterans' League both expressed dismay at Kodwa’s return to the National Assembly, even as secretary-general Fikile Mbalula clarified in a leaked letter this week that Kodwa was permitted to serve as an MP but not to hold any senior leadership position in the executive or in the ANC parliamentary caucus.

Kodwa’s case is particularly significant because he has actually been arrested. There are several other figures in the new ANC caucus who have not (yet) been formally charged with wrongdoing but have been plausibly implicated. They are now making their return to the National Assembly after a brief period in the “wilderness” – which, in reality, normally means sheltered employment at ANC headquarters at Luthuli House.

They include former Cabinet minister Malusi Gigaba, who was implicated at the Zondo Commission for allegedly conspiring with Zuma and the Gupta family during his time at the helm of several different departments. The picture that emerged from the State Capture inquiry, indeed, was one of Gigaba as the Guptas’ and Zuma’s most versatile and pliable member of the executive.

Possibly the most damning Gigaba-related testimony heard by the commission came from his ex-wife Norma, who testified that Gigaba would allegedly come home with sacks of cash from the Guptas.

Joining Gigaba on the ANC benches is former communications minister Faith Muthambi, who was revealed in #GuptaLeaks reporting to have passed on confidential Cabinet information to the Gupta family. The Organisation Undoing Tax Abuse (Outa) subsequently called for her to face treason charges. Muthambi was also found by a 2017 parliamentary inquiry into the SABC to have interfered politically in the running of the public broadcaster.

Also on the ANC MP squad is former deputy defence minister Thabang Makwetla, who was revealed by the Zondo Commission to have accepted Bosasa security upgrades worth more than R300,000 at his private home. Judge Raymond Zondo recommended that Makwetla be investigated for breaching the Prevention and Combating of Corrupt Activities Act (Precca), describing his lack of recognition that a conflict of interests would arise as “scary”.

EFF and MK add to scoundrels in the House

The EFF and MK parties hold a combined 97 seats in the seventh Parliament and are expected to work closely together. Their seats alone are not sufficient to win parliamentary votes, but they are enough to cause significant disruption – although EFF leader Julius Malema has already claimed that his party’s days of disruption are over. MK chief whip John Hlophe has said, too, that the party’s MPs do not intend to be “hooligans”.

As an illustration of the ideological symbiosis between the two parties, EFF MP Busisiwe Mkhwebane is married to new MK MP David Skosana. Mkhwebane is the disgraced former Public Protector who was stripped of her post by Parliament after conspiring with Zuma to try to bring down the South African Reserve Bank, among other things. Skosana is a former communications director for SuperSport United who is well known for vitriolic social media attacks on journalists and judges.

Adding to the Red Berets’ contribution to the rogues’ gallery, EFF secretary-general Marshall Dlamini was found guilty of assault after hitting a police constable in the face and breaking his glasses following the 2019 Sona in Parliament.

Dlamini was handed an 18-month prison sentence, suspended for five years, as well as a fine of R6,000 or three months in prison for malicious damage to property.

Accusations of wrongdoing against the EFF leaders in the National Assembly are legion, ranging from Malema’s frequent trips to the Equality Court and his continuing trial for discharging a rifle in public to the – not yet prosecuted – allegations of his involvement, together with deputy Floyd Shivambu, in the looting of VBS Mutual Bank.

Indeed, corruption allegations against Malema date back to at least 2012, when a report by former Public Protector Thuli Madonsela into his On Point Engineering enterprise found that “a crime has been committed” with regard to his contracts for Limpopo roads.

The MK party’s choice of chief whip for their 58 MPs, meanwhile, sends a clear message. Hlophe is one of only two judges to lose their jobs in democratic South Africa, after more than a decade of allegations of his political meddling in judicial matters. The impeached former judge has referred to South Africa’s Constitution and legal system as a “shitstem” in need of complete overhaul – yet, in being sworn in as an MP, he has now taken an oath to uphold the Constitution and all South African laws.

Hlophe’s caucus includes Des van Rooyen, the finance minister appointed by Zuma – seemingly on the basis that he would do the Guptas’ bidding – on 10 December 2015 and recalled three days later after financial markets recoiled in alarm.

Back in Parliament for the MK party is former EFF MP Andile Mngxitama, who represented the party in the National Assembly for just under a year between May 2014 and April 2015. He was expelled from the EFF after falling out with Malema and Shivambu. The GuptaLeaks emails revealed that Mngxitama asked the Guptas for money and at one point received instructions from London public relations firm Bell Pottinger.

Mngxitama also made headlines after being involved in the illegal occupation of a double-storey Pretoria mansion in 2018.

Another MK MP to escape criminal prosecution to date is Zuma’s daughter Duduzile Zuma-Sambudla. She was accused of having stoked violence through online posts leading up to and during the July 2021 riots, which left more than 350 people dead. Zuma-Sambudla has neither acknowledged nor apologised for her actions in this regard.

Code of conduct could hit where it hurts

Now that they are sworn in at the National Assembly, MPs are expected to comply with Parliament’s Code of Conduct, which prohibits financial conflicts of interests and requires them to “act on all occasions in accordance with the public trust placed in them”.

If they are found to have breached the code by Parliament’s ethics committee, among the possible penalties is one that has hit EFF MPs on a number of occasions in the past: having to pay a fine equivalent to a month’s salary. DM

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