Limpopo housing head roasted

MEMBERS of the Limpopo standing committee on public accounts have accused local housing department head Clifford Motsepe of insolence and of resorting to sarcastic attacks instead of accounting to the public for his department's activities.

The Scopa members have also asked committee chairperson Derrick Ngobeni to protect them from Motsepe after he gave them a lecture instead of giving answers to whether he had implemented Scopa recommendations.

Motsepe started quoting the Constitution and told the members he had "implemented the law and not "morality".

Motsepe resorted to attacks after he failed to give satisfactory responses to whether he had recovered money collected by officials in his department by fraudulently doing business with the government.

The officials were found guilty by the auditor-general of violating the Public Service Act, which prohibits government officials from doing business with their employer without permission.

It was the second time Motsepe arrived at the hearing and avoided responding appropriately,

He offered an irrelevant free lecture to the committee.

Motsepe was ordered to apologise for disrespecting the committee. He apologised but nevertheless continued to lecture the committee.

Committee member Joy Matshoge then asked Ngobeni to protect them.

"Motsepe must stop advocating for the department when he is failing to respond," Matshoge said.

"I will have a problem if you do not protect us."

Motsepe said they did not know how long it would take the department to blacklist the employee companies that did business with government.

He claimed he did not have powers to blacklist, though Scopa had told him that he actually had.