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Premier's AM Live interview with John Paerlman
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Speeches and Media Releases
 Premier's Office

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MEDIA RELEASE
 FOR IMMEDIATE USE
 7 NOVEMBER 2000

PREMIERS AM LIVE INTERVIEW WITH JOHN PEARLMAN

John Pearlman (JP): Last week AM Live picked up a story in the Mail and Guardian, which revealed that the MEC for Health in the Eastern 
Cape had a financial stake in an ambulance service which held contracts with a number of state hospitals. The Premier for the Eastern Cape 
Rev Makhenkesi Stofile responded to the revelation by saying he knew of the MEC Bevan Goqwanas involvement with Bopedi Ambulance Services 
and that the constitution allowed the MEC to own any business of his choice. To explore this matter a little bit further we are now joined 
on the line by the Eastern Cape Premier Makhenkesi Stofile and also by Colm Allan of Public Service Accountability Monitor at Rhodes 
University, which keeps an eye on corruption in the Eastern Cape.

Premier Stofile if I could start with you first of all good morning, you defended the MEC saying this is his constitutional right, please 
expand on your reasoning for us.

Premier (P):Chapter 22 of the Constitution of South Africa is very clear on the matter. All citizens have a right to choose trade, careers 
and all those sorts of things. But that section of the constitution the last sentence also says the trade rights can be regulated by law 
and in this country the law that regulates that is the code of conduct, there is no other one. And the code of conduct that applies to the 
MEC theres only one, it is the Eastern Cape code of conduct of 1998 which says that in the event of MECs having business interest they 
must declare them to the premier. There is also section 136 - 2(B) of the constitution which is indirectly linked to this kind of business 
although it really relates to other business not businesses other professions if for instance a lawyer is an MEC he cannot practise as a 
lawyer and if a doctor is an MEC he cannot practice as a doctor, this kind of thing. That is what section 136 is dealing about but 2 (B) of 
that section says that MECs should refrain from participating in activities that might compromise or conflict in their official 
responsibilities. Now cognisant of that I had advised the MEC because he is new he started in June last year, I advised him of his 
constitutional right and I advised him that in the light of section 136  2(B) he is advised to forfeit his constitutional right of owning 
that kind of business because it is directly related to his work&#133;

JP:Has he done so?

P:&#133;and he agreed. He told me at the beginning of this year he had sold the business to an Indian group in Durban but they had not paid 
and so he was taking it back and selling it to some other consortium again. Now that is where the situation stands.

JP:Okay let us bring in Colm Allan, Mr Allan good morning to you ehh your interpretation of what the constitution says and in fact some 
other bits of law that you might want to bring in into the debate.

Colm Allan (CA):John Quite frankly I would beg to differ with the Premiers interpretation of the regulatory framework here. I think the 
clause that he is sighting section 22 is in fact a clause in the Bill of Rights which applies to ordinary citizens whereas section 136 of 
the constitution specifically sets out a code of conduct for members of executives council or provisions governing the conduct of members 
of executive councils and amongst other things says that MECs such as our MEC of health here should not undertake any other paid work or in 
fact even engage themselves in the risk of a conflict of interest between their official responsibilities and private interests. So I would 
say that overwrites his errr the clause in section 22 in the Bill of Rights for him to own a private company. But John it does not end 
there, this question is much broader than the issue of MEC Goqwana owning a private ambulance service, while he was MEC, there is also the 
question of him owning the ambulance service and also additional allegations that he was running a private medical consultancy whilst he 
was the senior medical superintendent of the Umtata General Hospital which is in clear breach of the Public Service Act which he now has a 
responsibility for implementing within the department.

JP:Premier, your response to the comments made by Colm Allan?

P:First of all on the last issue that he is raising, of his private practice while he is an MEC, I think again he is wrong in citing the 
Public Service Act. The public Service Act applies to civil servants not politicians, I hope he has looked at it very carefully. If youre 
talking about the Public Service Act of 1999, that has nothing to do with the politicians it has to do with civil servants.

CA:John if I could respond to that, the fact of the matter is that between March and June of 1999, Dr Goqwana was the senior medical 
superintendent of the Umtata General and so at that point he was governed by the Public Service Act and public serve code of conduct.

P:Ooh, I will concede that as far as that period is concerned. But that period must not be clouding this particular issue because these are 
allegations, which have not been tested. But I want to go back to the overridings of section 22 by 136 in fact this is possibly the biggest 
mistake Mr Allan is making. Section 22 is part of the Bill of Rights, which is the backbone of the constitution of this country. It cannot 
be overridden by any section of the constitution you can ask any advocate on this. The only clause that overrides section 22 are the five 
points in section 36 of the same chapter of the constitution.

JP:But let me ask you about the implications of that for good governance Premier, if you are saying that the right of running the business 
of your choice is the right the overrides all other rights, surely that is recipe for chaos in government &#133;

P:should it not stay in the Constitution?

JP:&#133; because we are not dealing here purely with legal matter surely there are moral questions as well and your administration is on 
record as saying that you take a strong stance against corruption and in that sense you want to avoid any conflict of interest surely.

P:But you probably did not hear me say that cognisant of section 2B of section 136 ...

JP:Yes

P:&#133; which has to do with what you are talking about, good governance. I advised the MEC to get rid of his business, irrespective of 
the constitutionality of him running it.

JP:When did you advise him to do that?

P:In August 1999.

JP:So it is more than a year, and has he not done so, why not?

P:Well he did, he did. According to himself he sold the business to an Indian consortium in Natal. They did not pay him, he had to resell 
it.

JP:In the interview with Mail and Guardian he said he did not remember the name of he buyer nor the name of the law firm that handled the 
transaction.

P:I asked him about that and he said that is not what he said. What he said is that the document relating to those details are in his 
house, the Mail and Guardian did not publish that.

JP:Are you satisfied that he has done it?

P:I should be fair to everybody including the MECs. I have to believe what they tell me to be true. If I suspect it is not true, then I 
must go and investigate the veracity of what he said.

JP:Thank you very much, that is Reverend Makhenkesi Stofile who is Premier of the Eastern Cape.

Statement issued:Communications Division  Office of the Premier
 Inquiries:Mncedi Thamie Mgwigwi  (040) 639 2070

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