Three members of the North West legislature are alleged to have forged or not to have matric certificates.
This came a week after Sunday World reported that Tshepo Khoza, the deputy speaker of the provincial legislature faced accusations of forging his matric results.
Khoza resigned as the deputy speaker on Thursday.
According to a source close to the alleged three members, one of them is an MEC in one of the provincial departments.
“An MEC and one member of the legislature who is also a chairperson of a portfolio committee might have faked their matric certificates because the information from Umalusi cannot find their records,” a source said.
According to allegations, the third member of the legislature told the ANC that he did not have a matric certificate.
Advocate Lutendo Netshitumbu, the North West legislature’s secretary, said matric was not a requirement for a person to become a member of the legislature.
“The legislature is not aware of the allegations. It is, in any event, not a requirement of the constitution or any law that a person must possess certain qualifications before he or she is sworn in as a member of the legislature,” he said.
Netshitumbu was referring to Section 106 of the Constitution, which sets out the requirements to be a member of the legislature.
He used the example of two top politicians, Jacob Zuma and John Steenhuisen, who are or were in parliament but are alleged to not have matric.
“I can give you an example like president Zuma, it is a well-known fact that he did not have matric but he qualifies to be a member of Parliament because it is not a requirement of the constitution. To have a qualification is a requirement of the ANC, which came after Zuma,” said Netshitumbu.
He said in the seventh legislature, certain political parties like the EFF and the ANC raised the bar and decided to send their members to parliament only if they had the required entry level for the position.
“These people are a problem, and you must seek the answer from the ANC; they [members] have defrauded the ANC. Our deputy speaker has resigned, it is now a fact, but he has resigned as a deputy speaker, not as a member,” he said.
Netshitumbu outlined requirements for one to become a member of a legislature.
“You must have a clean criminal record; you must not be [an] unrehabilitated insolvent; you must not have been declared of unsound mind by a court in the Republic; and you must not have been convicted of an offence,” he said.
“The political party has a morality to uphold, and the political party went out and say in the seventh legislature, these are our requirements. It is also a contested seat. There will be those who also want to be members of the legislature who have the qualifications or requirements of the party who are now saying, Why do you put people who don’t qualify in terms of your criteria here?” he said.
Cosatu secretary in North West Kopano Konopi said the ANC made a wise move to remove Khoza but that the trade union expected more.
“We feel that it is not enough to keep him as a member of the provincial legislature because we feel that what he has done is tantamount to a criminal offence, and no public representative who has allegations of crime must be kept in a public office.”
He said Cosatu was not aware of any other members of the legislature who also did not have the required documents.
Sanco provincial secretary, Mogomotsi Mosheshe said the organisation had not received a letter from Khoza that states that he is resigning from the
legislature.
“We have requested that Khoza resign from both positions so that he can give Sanco an opportunity to speak to the head of the alliance, which is the ANC, as the ANC has previously entrusted us as Sanco with the position of deputy speaker,” he said.
Provincial ANC spokesperson, Tumelo Maruping, confirmed Khoza’s resignation but referred to the allegations about the three members’ matric certificates as a witch hunt against the ANC.
He said that there were individuals who were taking advantage of the ongoing Khoza matter to improperly group ANC deployees together.
“This conduct has malicious intent to tarnish the integrity and dignity of our comrades.
“The ANC does not in its possession have any report from any institution that has ever questioned the credibility of matric certificates of those comrades whom you’re accusing. We invite whoever alleges, to provide information and proof to the organisation and desist from tarnishing comrades and deployees of the ANC’s names without any substantial evidence to that effect.,” he said.
