Cape Town — Pressure is mounting for former correctional services minister Ngconde Balfour -- now SA's high commissioner to Botswana -- to be called to account for the "deep rot" in the department.

The Democratic Alliance (DA) is insisting that he and former national commissioner Linda Mti be called before Parliament to explain how billions of rand in contracts were irregularly awarded to the Bosasa group. And the chairman of Parliament's standing committee on public accounts (Scopa), Themba Godi, yesterday said Balfour should take responsibility for the fraud and corruption under his watch and quit his ambassador post or be recalled.

DA correctional services spokesman James Selfe has written to the chairman of Parliament's correctional services committee, Vincent Smith, asking for Balfour and Mti to be called before the committee to explain the delegation of powers in the department and why Balfour had insisted that a suspect catering contract be renewed when it expired at the end of 2007.

Speaking in his personal capacity, Godi, of the African People's Convention, said the government would not succeed in rooting out corruption unless there were consequences both for those directly implicated and for those politically responsible for the oversight of a department.

"What ... is lacking in SA is a sense of shame by officials and political heads so that when they have done wrong they do the honourable thing and quit," he said.

Godi said Scopa would deal with the correctional services department only when Parliament resumed next year, but he believed Balfour should do the honourable thing and quit.

He said in an interview that Balfour "has been incompetent, caused severe embarrassment to the state and the loss of massive amounts of money through the bribery that occurred under his watch". It did not send the right signal for such a man to be given the highest honour of an ambassadorial post.

"Surely you want to send people to represent the country with the highest integrity and without the slightest stain on their reputation.

"Here you have a minister who over the years presided over a department which was rotten to the core, and yet he was publicly and continuously very defensive about the issues in his department."

Presidential spokesman Vincent Magwenya said President Jacob Zuma could not respond to media reports and could make a decision only on the basis of an official recommendation by Parliament.

Godi was commenting on the findings of an investigation by the Special Investigations Unit of corruption in correctional services. This merely confirmed Scopa's existing concerns about the "shenanigans" in the department.

The report highlighted how department officials allegedly colluded in tender rigging and accepted millions in "inducements" to ensure contracts worth billions went to a single group of companies.