The African National Congress has been stung by the public naming of six of its senior members, including three cabinet ministers, as former secret agents of South Africa's discredited white minority government. The putative former spies serving in President Mandela's cabinet are the Defence Minister, Mr Joe Modise; the Energy and Mineral Affairs Minister, Mr Penuell Maduna; and the Public Enterprise Minister, Ms Stella Sigcau.
The three remaining alleged former spies - named in parliament with their cabinet colleagues by Ms Patricia de Lisle of the PanAfricanist Congress (PAC) - are the Deputy Environment Minister, Mr Peter Mokaba, and two provincial premiers, Mr Mathews Phosa, of Mpumalanga, and Mr Makhenkesi Stofile, of the Eastern Cape.
The identification of the reputed spies is a sequel to what Ms De Lisle describes as "weeks of hell" for the PAC, during which its leader, Bishop Stanley Mogoba, was labelled a security risk by unidentified ANC members and "by implication a spy".
The whispering campaign against Dr Mogoba, immediate past president of the Methodist Church, comes in the wake of an apparent attempt by Mr Mandela to prevent him from serving on the parliamentary intelligence committee - on the grounds that the PAC might be embarrassed by the obligatory security check which all members of the intelligence committee undergo.
The PAC believes Mr Mandela's intervention carries an implied message that Dr Mogoba's past contains a dark secret that would embarrass him and the movement he left the church to lead last December.
To defuse speculation, the PAC has put on record that Dr Mogoba confirmed in the 1988 trial of a former PAC guerrilla commander, Mr Enoch Zulu, that he had given Mr Zulu food and shelter.
But Ms De Lisle emphasises that Dr Mogoba did so only after he had been given the go-ahead by the PAC leadership and after Mr Zulu had himself told the police he had sought refuge at Dr Mogoba's house on his return to South Africa. "The PAC leadership saw no reason why Dr Mogoba should go to jail for telling the truth," she said.
The ANC has counter-attacked, accusing Ms De Lisle of abusing parliamentary privilege to "cast doubts on the integrity of pre-eminent citizens and public representatives."
It has requested parliament to form a special committee to investigate Ms De Lisle's accusations. Ms De Lisle refuses to comment publicly on the source of her information, but stressed she is quite willing to appear before the parliamentary committee.
Allegations that the upper echelons of the ANC contain people who secretly worked for the apartheid government are a recurring theme in post-apartheid South Africa. The former head of the National Intelligence Service, Mr Mike Louw, is on record confirming that he gave Mr Mandela the names of ANC members who were informers when the ANC leader became President.