Parliament urged to explain fraud MP’s appointment

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  • South Africa

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Publish date 11 July 2019
Issue Number 4738
Diary Legalbrief Today
The DA has called for former Buffalo City Mayor Zukisa Faku to be investigated after she resigned as an MP last week, says a TimesLIVE report. The party believes Parliament needs to explain how Faku was elected as an ANC ...

The DA has called for former Buffalo City Mayor Zukisa Faku to be investigated after she resigned as an MP last week, says a TimesLIVE report. The party believes Parliament needs to explain how Faku was elected as an ANC MP despite having fraud convictions to her name. Faku was found guilty of fraud relating to her use of an official credit card when she was mayor of Buffalo City, and had been serving her fraud sentence while holding on to her MP seat. She was convicted on nine counts of fraud. DA chief whip John Steenhuisen said: ‘Should it turn out that Faku was never eligible for election, Parliament should conduct an urgent review to establish where and how their internal vetting systems failed to pick this up. Parliament would then also be obligated to recover the money and benefits Faku received while masquerading as a lawful MP.’ Steenhuisen said for Faku to get a seat at Parliament she had to sign a nomination acceptance form from the Independent Electoral Commission declaring that she was not disqualified from standing for the elections in terms of any applicable legislation. ‘If she was in fact not eligible for election at the time she signed this form, she fraudulently misrepresented her status and more serious consequences should follow,’ he said.