Pretoria - The standing committee on public accounts (Scopa) has denied a request by Higher Education, Science and Technology Minister Dr Blade Nzimande to keep confidential a forensic report on the National Skills Fund.
Nzimande wrote a letter to Scopa chairperson Mkhuleko Hlengwa, who then met with his committee on Wednesday morning and denied the request.
In the letter titled “request to treat and declare the National Skills Fund forensic report submitted to the committee as confidential in terms of rule 189 of the rules of the National Assembly”, Nzimande wrote that the people named in the report had not yet been informed that they were implicated.
According to him, if it were released publicly it would “violate those people’s rights”.
He said: “As requested in our last meeting that the report should be submitted to the committee through your office, I want to reiterate that all the people whose names are mentioned in the report have not been engaged at all, whilst the department is still finalising its internal processes.
“We request that until all processes before law enforcement agencies and internal departmental disciplinary processes are concluded, the report be treated in terms of rule 198 of the National Assembly, especially sub-rule (1) (c) read with sub-rule (4) (a).
“I submit that our request for confidentiality is reasonable and justifiable in an open and democratic society like ours and would not want to be the ones violating people’s rights to a fair trial.”
However, Hlengwa, speaking to the “Pretoria News” yesterday, said it would not happen that the committee would keep such a matter confidential.
He said: “The committee met this morning (yesterday) and we decided not to allow the request of the minister (Nzimande) to go through.”
This means the forensic report will be released to the public.
Nzimande’ s spokesperson Ishmael Mnisi was not available for comment after his phone rang unanswered.
Nzimande was attending Cosatu’s congress in Johannesburg and was unavailable.
The EFF accused Nzimande of trying to seal the report, saying people and companies named in the report were funding the SACP, of which Nzimande is chairperson.
The EFF said in a statement: “Nzimande, in a haphazard and desperate manner, attempted to coerce Scopa into sealing and making confidential a report into corrupt activity at the National Skills Fund, essentially turning Parliament into a secretive institution that is not transparent to the public.
“The request by Nzimande comes as no surprise, because there are allegations that recipients of defrauded funds are pseudo service providers to the National Skills Fund, who have handsomely donated to the SACP. Allegations are that the flow of funds are for the upkeep of SACP officials, including Nzimande himself. The attempted sealing of the investigative report is an attempt to evade scrutiny of abuse of public funds that were used to bankroll the SACP and its officials.”
It added: “The report on the investigation into the National Skills Funds must be made public, and the EFF refuses to be sworn into secrecy on matters of public funds, maladministration and corruption. The EFF has warned Scopa to not set a dangerous precedent of allowing the Department of Higher Education, Science and Technology to hide corruption with the consent of Parliament.
“The report is not confidential and therefore the EFF will not subscribe to any clandestine agreement to hide corruption at the behest of Blade Nzimande.”
However, SACP spokesperson Alex Mashilo rubbished the EFF assertions, saying they were unfounded because it was Nzimande who had commissioned the investigation.
“It was the minister who commissioned the investigation and he is not asking for the report to be sealed. That word is also not used in the letter.
“What the letter says is that the people that are named there have not been informed. As the SACP we would not ask for any violation of our laws.
“The EFF’s assertions are rubbish. It’s political grandstanding and we condemn it.
“It is manufacturing of lies and nonsense. We denounce it because it’s stupid and foolish.”
Pretoria News