Shope-Mafole defends herself
Communications director-general Lyndall Shope-Mafole said yesterday she felt she had to defend herself against innuendo and suggestions of impropriety by members of Parliament’s communications committee.
She insisted that she always acted correctly, and denied there had been any conflict of interest arising out of her personal relationship. Her life partner is Kenyan Henry Chasia, who is deputy executive chairman of the Nepad e-Africa Commission and is involved in the continent’s undersea telecommunications cable project, the Eastern Africa Submarine Cable System.
Shope-Mafole caused shock waves two weeks ago when she resigned from the African National Congress (ANC) and its national executive committee to join the breakaway Congress of the People.
Democratic Alliance (DA) communications spokeswoman Dene Smuts claimed that the ANC members of the committee — known supporters of party president Jacob Zuma — were “looking for trouble”.
“They were going for the director-general because she has joined the Shikota party.”
However, Smuts has also posed parliamentary questions about Shope-Mafole’s relationship with Chasia and conflicts of interest to which it could give rise with SA’s initiatives to install undersea telecommunication links.
Examples of the supposed innuendos were comments by ANC chief whip Khotso Khumalo to the effect that the ANC had serious problems with the involvement of the department in the manufacture of set top boxes for digital broadcasting and its interference with the undersea cable project.
Khumalo denied the DA’s claims that the ANC had been gunning for Shope-Mafole, saying there was “no vendetta” against her. She was not appointed because she belonged to the ANC, and her contract ended only in 2011, he said.
Khumalo said that questions raised by the ANC were not intended to be personal but to ensure proper oversight of government programmes.
In her defence, Shope-Mafole said she had been accused many times of conflicts of interest.
“There have been innuendos about undersea cables and me benefiting and my partner benefiting,” she said.
“I think if people feel there is a need for an investigation, an investigation must be done because, really, this issue comes out in all kinds of guises all of the time. I can tell you, you will not find any kind of fraud or impropriety in anything that I do.
“It gets frustrating when you are a public servant and there are these innuendos.”
Shope-Mafole referred to the investigation into her role at the Independent Broadcasting Authority — before her appointment as director-general — and noted that she had been cleared of all allegations of wrongdoing.
She insisted that the department was not involved in the manufacture of set top boxes, and would merely set the specifications. Neither would it be involved in issuing tenders. It was “only developing a strategy for the development of the electronics manufacturing sector”.
Shope-Mafole defended the department’s plan to use the set top boxes as a vehicle for e-government even though this would add significantly to their cost.
She said this would allow poor people to use the device for information technology purposes and to access the internet. This would be their only chance to break out of the cycle of poverty and participate in the information society.
Shope-Mafole also defended the location of the presidential national commission on the information society within the department rather than the Presidency, saying the Presidency had not wanted another structure.
She hoped the new government would locate the commission in the Presidency, giving it more clout to enforce co-ordination between departments.
Meanwhile, Sentech chairman Colin Hickling said it was difficult for the organisation to roll out its wireless broadband network without a firm commitment from the government that it would get further funding.
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