Sisulu in blistering attack on Sexwale

Defence and Military Veterans Minister Lindiwe Sisulu has launched a blistering attack on Human Settlements Minister Tokyo Sexwale, accusing him of failing to come up with new programmes and for claiming credit for initiatives she introduced while she was still minister of housing.

In a blunt message delivered yesterday, Sisulu noted that Sexwale "has not launched a single project" since he took over the portfolio.

The extraordinary attack by one cabinet minister on another appears to have been triggered by revelations that the Department of Housing, since renamed, spent more than R22 million during Sisulu's tenure on a play, performances of which Sexwale has halted.

What sparked Sisulu's ire appears to have been comments by Sexwale on 702

What sparked Sisulu's ire appears to have been comments by Sexwale on Gauteng-based talk radio station 702, when he said that he had "no time for plays and theatre that have nothing to do with building houses".

The Cape Times reported yesterday that the industrial theatre production A re Ageng Mzanzi (Let's Build South Africa) netted R5,5m for a production company owned by former soapie actor Mpho Tsedu.

In a terse statement released yesterday, Sisulu told Sexwale, who was in Boksburg telling reporters that 40 000 RDP homes were so defective they would have to be demolished and rebuilt, to "spend some time in the office reading reports and cabinet memos from 2004".

She said these would inform him that the human settlements concept was not new, but had actually been approved in 2004, the year she took over as minister of housing

The name of the department was changed after the elections, as part of a broader reconfiguration of government under President Jacob Zuma.

Failed to respond to repeated calls and SMSs

Sisulu told Sexwale that housing developments such as Cosmo City in Gauteng, built during her tenure, were based on the very same human settlements model.

Sisulu, a national working committee member of the ANC, sees herself as politically senior to Sexwale, who only sits on the ruling party's national executive committee. Her length of experience as a cabinet minister is also much greater.

She defended the decision to commission the play, saying it was necessary to inform the public about new government plans for housing.

"He (Sexwale) will discover that when you implement a new plan and a housing project, you need to communicate with all stakeholders. Beneficiaries of government housing programmes must be educated on their responsibilities, how they can economically benefit from the project, how to report fraud and corruption and to ensure that contractors do not take advantage of them."

Sisulu said a number of projects Sexwale had claimed credit for, including plans to repair defective RDP houses at a cost of R1 billion, and bringing in the Special Investigating Unit to investigate low-cost housing fraud, had been initiated on her watch.

"Noting that since his appointment, the minister has not launched a single project, and we have not seen his plan for human settlements which differs from the one approved and launched in 2004, (and) based on five years' experience and delivery of over 1,5 million houses, we are convinced that when the minister starts building houses or finalising his priorities he will realise that community participation and consumer education is central to housing delivery," Sisulu said.

Sexwale's spokesperson Chris Vick failed to respond to repeated calls and SMSs.

Sisulu's lashing of Sexwale could lie in the distrust some senior ANC leaders have for the former business mogul, who harboured his own presidential ambitions before throwing in his lot with Zuma on the eve of the ANC's Polokwane conference in 2007. It is believed Sexwale has not abandoned his presidential ambitions and has his sights set on the ANC's next elective conference in Mangaung in 2012.

DA housing spokesperson Butch Steyn has written to auditor-general Terence Nombembe asking for a special investigation into the play.

• This article was originally published on page 1 of The Cape Times