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DA wants probe into Mashatile diamond allegations

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By Akani Nkuna

The DA will request an investigation into possible contradictions in the official declarations of interests of Deputy President Paul Mashatile about a diamond received from controversial diamond dealer, Louis Liebenberg.

Mashatile’s spokesperson Keith Khoza told SABC news that the deputy president’s wife, Humile, received the stone. It was not declared because its authenticity and value had to be verified.

However, while in the process of verification, information surfaced on a number of criminal allegations involving Liebenberg, and it was decided it would not be prudent to accept anything from him.

Hlumile will return the diamond to Liebenberg.

But DA chief whip George Michalakis is not buying Mashatile’s explanation.

“Mashatile’s claim that the diamond from Louis Liebenberg was given to his wife contradicts the version of the whistleblower in this matter in an unsigned affidavit of Hein Jooste filed in the State’s case against Liebenberg,” he said on Wednesday.

“The whistleblower’s version is that at the deputy president’s residence he was made to select a diamond for Mashatile. Not his wife.”

Michalakis said in a statement that the DA would pursue this allegation through two investigations.

It would write to Cabinet Secretary Phindile Baleni to request that she launches a probe into the gift, the declarations that Mashatile made, and the nature of the stone.

“The DA notes that if this stone is an uncut diamond, it would be illegal for the deputy president to have possessed it without holding a special licence for this purpose,” he said.

The party will also write to the acting Registrar of Parliament, requesting that Mashatile’s declaration of gifts received be reviewed and interrogated by Parliament’s Ethics Committee.

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