Prosecutors allege South Africa’s parliamentary speaker took $135,000 and a wig in bribes
Prosecutors in South Africa said on Monday that they want to file charges of corruption against the speaker of the house of representatives.
They claim that during her tenure as defence minister, the speaker accepted payments totaling $135,000 and a wig.
Nosiviwe Mapisa-Nqakula, the speaker, is neither under arrest or under suspicion. At a court hearing, the prosecutors discussed her accusations that the authorities had not notified her of the charges in a suitable manner or had not conducted their investigation according to protocol.
On April 2, Judge Sulet Potterill announced that she will rule on Mapisa-Nqakula’s request for a temporary injunction against her detention by the police. Additionally, Mapisa-Nqakula is requesting access to the records that list the evidence that the prosecution has against her.
Her motion has been denied by the prosecution, who claim she is requesting preferential treatment.
In court papers submitted for the hearing, prosecutors say that Mapisa-Nqakula, 67, received 11 payments totaling $135,000 between December 2016 and July 2019. She sought another bribe of $105,000 but that wasn’t paid, prosecutors said.
On one occasion in February 2019, Mapisa-Nqakula received more than $15,000 and a wig at a meeting at the country’s main international airport, the papers say.
The person who allegedly paid the bribes wasn’t named.
Prosecutors gave her the opportunity to hand herself in at a police station and be taken to court to be formally charged. They said they wouldn’t oppose her bail.
Mapisa-Nqakula has denied wrongdoing and had said she would cooperate with authorities after they searched her home in Johannesburg and seized evidence last week.
She has taken a leave of absence from her role as Parliament’s speaker. She was previously accused of taking bribes, but a parliamentary investigation was dropped in 2021. The case reemerged after a whistleblower came forward last year, prosecutors said.
Her case is the latest graft scandal to hit the governing African National Congress party, which faces a pivotal national election on May 29.
