Johnathan Paoli
THE Organisation Undoing Tax Abuse (OUTA) is outraged at what it claims is a slap on the wrist for Deputy Minister of Small Business Development Dipuo Peters for severe “transgressions” she committed at PRASA when she was still Transport Minister.
Peters was suspended from Parliament after a report from the joining committee on ethics alleged that she had been careless in her previous portfolio as Transport Minister by failing to appoint a PRASA group CEO, irrationally dismissing the board chair Popo Molefe and authoriting the use of PRASA buses for ANC events.
OUTA’s Wayne Duvenage said Peters, when she was at PRASA, was instrumental in systemic corruption that ultimately decimated the rail passenger services that had been the transport backbone for millions of South Africans.
“It’s never too late but it’s far too little and this is not enough. The fact that she is still a deputy minister in one of the government departments is a problem. The board was uncovering a lot of corruption and she was doing everything that she could to prevent the realisation of the facts, so quite frankly, we believe she was very instrumental in her role in preventing justice being meted out,” Duvenage said.
Duvenage said that while it was not too late to hold individuals accountable, the penalty for abusing public trust was far too little.
The Parliamentary committee on ethics leader Zackie Achmat found that Peters dismissed the PRASA board in 2017 because it had uncovered corruption in the billions of rand and that Peters had used PRASA buses for the ANC events in 201 and 2015 without ensuring that the services were paid for.
Peters tried to appeal the ethics committee finding but the Western High Court dismissed her urgent application to stop the implementation of her suspension from all duties in Parliament. She is expected to be placed on suspension from Tuesday.
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