Cape Town - Parliament’s register of members’ interests for this year will include at least one startling declaration of a gift: an anti-flea product sent to DA MP David Maynier.

He may also feel the need to declare the gift of a calculator from former Defence Minister Lindiwe Sisulu, while she will no doubt be obliged to mention the astonishing pink satin “comfort pillow”, festooned with feathers, that Maynier sent her in return. Not for them the more mundane items like sheep declared by other MPs last year.

It all started with Maynier’s dogged questioning of Sisulu about her use of a chartered Gulfstream jet while she was still in the defence hot seat, prompting her to urge him to “keep his flea-infested body at peace and sit down”. She later sent him the calculator “to assist you to count better” - a reference to the incorrect figure he’d cited for the number of flights she’d taken (though the information came from her former underlings in the air force).

Maynier declared himself “relieved the minister has not sent me a bottle of Frontline to deal with my fleas”.

Now,