President Jacob Zuma, in his capacity as leader of the ANC, must immediately expel former communications minister Dina Pule from parliament and ensure she does not get a “soft landing” in a diplomatic or government posting.

That’s the view of Democratic Alliance MP and shadow communications minister Marian Shinn, who says in a statement that the findings of public protector Thuli Madonsela into Pule’s conduct around the 2012 ICT Indaba must result in Zuma acting against her.

Among other findings, Madonsela found that Pule violated section 96(2)(c) of the constitution and section 2.3(h) of the executive ethics code.

“Pule has already been found guilty by the multiparty parliamentary ethics and members’ interests committee of violating the executive members’ ethics code, and escaped with an insincere apology and a seat on parliament’s portfolio committee on transport,” Shin says.

“Madonsela’s damning report of the rapacious way in which Pule, her romantic partner Phosane Mngqibisa and some officials in the department, saw Carol Bouwer’s idea of the ICT Indaba as an opportunity for self-enrichment and cavalier behaviour are a clear indication that Pule has an ethical deficit and inability to act in the best interests of the government and citizens when her own interests are conflicted,” she says. “This is not the fabric from which diplomats and high office bearers are made.”

Shinn says the public protector’s findings must now be added to the “basket of investigations already underway” by the Hawks into possible corruption and improper appointments of hand-picked people into senior management and board positions in the department of communications and the entities that report to it. “Decisive action is now needed to remove Dina Pule from any public office.”

In addition, apologies that Madonsela has asked Pule to make to Bouwer, parliament, the Sunday Times and employees of the department of communications “must be made unequivocally and in full appreciation that she has acted unlawfully, unethically and improperly”.

“She must not be allowed to get away with mealy-mouthed utterances she used in parliament earlier this year, which clearly showed that she was not sorry for her actions.”

Shinn also wants deputy directors-general in the department of communications, who, she says, were “complicit in the hijacking of Bouwer’s ICT Indaba concept and then in running interference with the Sunday Times’s investigation and the public protector’s probing of the event, are dealt with in a manner that is an example to all senior public servants tempted to bend the rules to serve the personal interests of politicians and their fellow travellers, rather than those of all South Africans”. — (c) 2013 NewsCentral Media