Bad government

DA members thrown out of briefing
Bhavna Sookha
April 04 2008 at 08:01AM

If you are not a member of the media, then please can you excuse yourselves and leave.

This was the instruction given to two members of the Democratic Alliance, an Ekurhuleni councillor and a representative from the Environmental Conservation Association (ECA) during a media briefing that was organised by the Gauteng department of agriculture, conservation and environment on Thursday.

MEC Khabisi Mosunkutu convened the briefing to address allegations levelled against him by the DA and Nicole Barlow of the ECA, which were reported in the media.

The allegations are related to the suspicious approval of a number of multimillion-rand developments in Gauteng.

DA members who were seated in the department's boardroom in Eloff Street, Joburg, were asked to excuse themselves, and when they questioned the department, they were told that they had not been invited.

But the DA said they had been trying to meet with the MEC for some time now and that this briefing would allow them access to him.

"When we ask questions, we get vague answers. I have been waiting for an appointment since January," said Rika Kruger, DA spokesperson on conservation and environment in the legislature.

Barlow was also asked to leave.

Once the DA members and Barlow had left, Mosunkutu said he had called the briefing for an "opportunity to debunk the stories of the campaign launched by the DA".

"I must point out that the developmental projects that were mentioned in the DA's media hysteria are actually in various stages of finalisation."

This article was originally published on page 5 of The Star on April 04, 2008