PROFILE: Mkhuleko Hlengwa’s plan to tackle the rot
The new chair of parliament’s watchdog committee is young and driven – with enough experience to hold the executive to account
In 2012 the IFP’s long-standing and now outgoing leader, Mangosuthu Buthelezi, took a gamble on then 24-year-old Mkhuleko Hlengwa.Hlengwa was named an MP, which by his own account "raised eyebrows". Nine years later, the leader of the IFP Youth Brigade and the party’s national spokesperson can’t quite say why his mentor, Buthelezi, had such faith in him, but he hopes the gamble has paid off.The party has taken yet another chance on one of its most prominent MPs by giving him the chair of the standing committee on public accounts (Scopa) — parliament’s watchdog.Scopa is the only committee not chaired by the ANC.Hlengwa says Scopa is positioned at the centre of parliamentary accountability and oversight. It is strategically positioned to "ask the critical question: what killed the patient? And, like no other, resurrect the dead," he says.Hlengwa will exercise this accountability by identifying what went wrong and then fixing it."I will not allow a situation where parliament and Scopa ...
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