Minister of Water and Sanitation Nomvula Mokonyane will meet with the public protector this week amidst allegations of corruption in the Lesotho Highlands Water Project.

The minister is alleged to have delayed the project and awarded contracts to a company with which she has a long-standing relationship.

City Press reports that it confirmed the meeting with Public Protector Thuli Madonsela’s office, as did Mokonyane’s spokespeople, who said she was cooperating and had given a date to engage with the Public Protector.

According to a report by City Press, Mokonyane is said to have personally intervened to delay the Lesotho Highlands Water Project by a year in order to accommodate the involvement of LTE Consulting, a company with which she has relationship and which is a generous funder of the ANC.

According to City Press, senior officials from both South Africa and Lesotho say the delay was a deliberate ploy by Mokonyane to buy time for LTE to get involved.

LTE is reportedly already the beneficiary of R5 billion worth of projects from the Department of Water and Sanitaion, some of which are the subject of a special investigating unit probe at the request of President Jacob Zuma.

 

Mokonyane denies claims

Mokonyane told 702 that the allegations are peddling of lies and that to her knowledge she is not being investigated by the public protector. “We are having discussions with the Public Protector, that’s all. We are meeting her on Tuesday,” she said.

According to Mokonyane, the delay in the project was the result of two main stumbling blocks: that there was no procurement policy in place and a change in government in Lesotho.

Mokonyane said she does not know whether LTE has in fact been awarded the contract and that she, as the minister, is not involved in deciding who tenders are awarded to.

 

Calls for Mokonyane’s resignation

Meanwhile, the Democratic Alliance (DA) has called on President Zuma to fire Mokonyane as Minister of Water and Sanitation, as “she is not serious about the water crisis in South Africa.”

The party has claimed that, since her appointment in 2014, “she has been obstructive and has no plan to fund the R300 billion needed over the next four years to stop a full scale collapse of water infrastructure in South Africa.”

The DA will request that the public protector expand her investigation into all major tenders since Mokonyane’s appointed as Minister of Water and Sanitation.