Bonny Schoonakker
15 December 2002
Johannesburg — THREE of the people given national honours by President Thabo Mbeki this week are members of the advisory council that recommended nominees for the awards.
Yvonne Muthien, chief spokesman for the MTN Group , Stuart Saunders, the former University of Cape Town vice-chancellor, and Bishop Mvume Dandala, head of the Methodist Church in South Africa, each received the Order of the Baobab in the silver class.
The three all sit on the 10-member Advisory Council of National Orders, which drew up a shortlist, sent to Mbeki for his final selection, via the office of Frank Chikane, chancellor in the office of the presidency.
Asked whether there was any conflict of interest between her inclusion on the list of recipients and her membership of the advisory council, Muthien said "no, not at all".
She said she had been appointed to the council in 1998 by then President Nelson Mandela as deputy to cleric Beyers Naudé, and specifically instructed to revise the system of national orders. This responsibility became weightier when she stood in for Naudé, who suffered poor health. As a result, she had "spearheaded" the revision of the system of national honours.
Muthien said the advisory council had previously been made up of past recipients, and was therefore dominated by luminaries of the apartheid era.
She said this meant that the post-apartheid council should be made up of distinguished citizens who had not previously received an award, but were nevertheless worthy of receiving one.
Muthien said she had not felt it necessary to recuse herself from a meeting at which the shortlist was discussed. "We had completed our work and in graciousness I decided to accept," she said.
Saunders confirmed that he was a member of the council but only to the extent of planning a new system for awarding honours.
He and Dandala both said they were not present at meetings at which the shortlist was discussed.
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