The DA wants answers amid revelations of a R4.1-million payment to the farmworkers’ union Bawsi by the Agriculture Department.
|||Cape Town - The DA is set to ask the public protector and the auditor-general to investigate after Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries Minister Tina Joemat-Pettersson revealed that her department paid R4.1-million to the Black Association of the Wine and Spirits Industry (Bawsi).
Joemat-Pettersson confirmed this in a parliamentary reply to Annette Steyn, the DA’s spokesperson on agriculture.
Bawsi - the farmworker union - had been at the forefront of the recent violent strikes in the farming regions of the Western Cape.
Steyn said it was clear from the reply that this funding was given to Bawsi on October 8, 2012, just before the farm strikes began across the province.
“This amount of money, coupled with the timing of the transfer, brings into question whether the Department of Agriculture helped fund the farm strikes in the Western Cape.
“I will write to Public Protector Thuli Madonsela to fully investigate this provision of funding and whether or not it was provided to Bawsi to assist them to fund the farmworkers’ strikes.
“I will also write to Auditor-General Terence Nombembe and request that he investigates whether this provision of funding constituted irregular, fruitful and wasteful expenditure, and whether all proper processes were followed in its allocation to an ANC-aligned trade union,” said Steyn. - Cape Argus