Deputy President Paul Mashatile has been fined R10,000 for failing to declare a diamond gift his wife Humile received from a controversial businessman Louis Liebenberg in 2023.
Mashatile said at the time that the gift was unsolicited and that his wife would take the precious stone back.
This could now see Mashatile being the first sitting deputy president to suffer the public humiliation of being rebuked by the National Assembly for his questionable ethical conduct.
Parliament’s joint committee on ethics and members’ interests has recommended that the National Assembly reprimands Mashatile and imposes a R10,000 fine on him “for his failure to declare a gift to his wife in the confidential part of his financial and registrable interests register”.
The fine comes in the wake of a controversy about a Constantia mansion, on the slopes of the Table Mountain, that Mashatile declared in parliament last Friday.
Reports suggested that Mashatile had declared the almost R30m house as his own, but he has since said all he did was to declare the palatial retreat as the place he lived whenever he was in Cape Town. Mashatile maintained that the mansion was a family home bought by his son-in-law.
“Look, people must read. That’s just one of the first things you must learn in life. There’s nothing in parliament that I said a house (in Constantia). I said I live there. That house is owned by my son I law. It’s a very simple thing to read, so what’s the problem?” Mashatile told the SABC on Thursday.
“I don’t use government money, there’s no government money in those houses, so what are you looking for, there’s no government money in that house, so I don’t know what’s your problem. It’s a private home; it’s owned by the family ... so how does government come in?”
The joint ethics committee probed Mashatile over the Liebenberg diamond after receiving a complaint from the DA in March 2025.
DA chief whip George Michalakis at the time alleged that Mashatile had breached the code requiring MPs to disclose gifts received by their immediate family in the confidential part of the register of members’ interests.
“Following consideration of the complaint and perusal of the confidential part of the Deputy President’s disclosed interests, the committee noted that the gift in question (a diamond from Mr Louis Liebenberg) was not disclosed,” the committee said. “While the committee noted the member’s response, among others, that he was waiting for the appraisal of the diamond to determine its value before a declaration was made and that he has since surrendered the gift to the National Prosecuting Authority, the committee contended that ethical behaviour required that the gift be declared, with the value disclosed at a later stage.”
Reacting to committee’s damning findings against Mashatile on Thursday, Michalakis said the nature of the relationship between Mashatile and Liebenberg remained unclear.
“The DA welcomes the guilty finding of the parliamentary joint ethics committee against Deputy President Paul Mashatile, for failing to disclose a diamond gifted to his wife by alleged fraudster Louis Liebenberg.
“We also note the sanction of a reprimand and R10,000 fine. This follows a complaint I laid with the committee on March 5 2025,” he said.
“The deputy president has since confirmed that the diamond was handed over to the National Prosecuting Authority. However, the ethics report raises more questions than answers, and the DA will submit parliamentary questions in this regard.”
Michalakis said it was worrying that Mashatile was “so careless” in his failure to disclose his assets as required.
“These failures give rise to serious concerns as to why the deputy president continuously fails to declare assets transparently and ethically, as well as what other assets the deputy president holds that have not yet been declared,” he said.
“South Africans deserve transparency from their deputy president, remunerated with public money, about the assets he acquires by virtue of the office he holds.”
TimesLIVE
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