Johannesburg - Parliament has dismissed media reports that senior officials awarded themselves study bursaries over junior staff applicants.
Responding to an article in the Sunday Times, parliamentary spokesperson Moloto Mothapo, in statement, dismissed the claims as "baseless rumours".
The Sunday Times reported that Gengezi Mgidlana, the secretary to Parliament had awarded himself a bursary to study for a master's degree after turning down 50 junior staffers' applications, claiming the legislature had run out of funds.
The paper also reported that Unathi Mtya, Parliament's new head of information technology, was granted a R1.1m bursary to study at Columbia University in New York for a postgraduate qualification.
‘Preference given to new applicants’
Mothapo said in 2016 Parliament invited staff members to apply for bursaries to study for this year through its allocated bursary budget of R1.5m.