Alice Sigcawu

Sigcawu was born on 28 August 1952^[1] in Tabankulu in present-day Eastern Cape.^[2]

In South Africa's first post apartheid elections in 1994, Sigcawu was elected to represent the ANC in the National Assembly, the lower house of the new South African Parliament.^[3] She was re-elected to a second term in the 1999 general election^[1] and left Parliament after the 2004 general election.

After she left Parliament, Sigcawu was one of several MPs who faced criminal charges for abusing parliamentary travel vouchers in the Travelgate scandal.^[4] In October 2006, she accepted a plea bargain with the Scorpions,^[5] in terms of which she pled guilty to a single count of theft in connection with R120,000 in service benefits. She was sentenced to pay a fine of R50,000 or serve three years' imprisonment, and was also given a mandatory five-year prison sentence suspended conditionally for five years.^[6]