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Public Protector Thuli Madonsela said she did not fear losing her job, nor had she contemplated resigning in the face of rising political pressure.
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Public Protector Thuli Madonsela has struck back harder at the government’s security cluster ministers over her interim Nkandla report.
She told them she would now handle the Nkandla report on her own terms and that they must forget about ever seeing it again before its release to the public.
Speaking to journalists in Pretoria on Wednesday, she said she would address the ministers’ security concerns, but vowed to release a revised report by early next year without their direct input.
She sought to prove she was equally tigerish in the spat over her report on the R206 million upgrade at President Jacob Zuma’s Nkandla home.
She announced she had decided to “depoliticise” her interim report by not allowing any of the security cluster ministers to see it.
Madonsela said she did not fear losing her job, nor had she ever contemplated resigning, in the wake of political pressure and threats to charge her criminally.
She said the ministers’ attempt to interdict the release of her report a fortnight ago was not only unprecedented but was also unhealthy for relations between her office and the government.
Madonsela said the only concession she was prepared to make was to allow them to appoint experts from within the government to raise whatever security concerns they might have around Zuma or the country.
She said this was part of her decision to “depoliticise” her report and make it free from government interference.
“The depoliticised way forward seeks to take the process back to technical rather than political engagement,” Madonsela said.
She said the provisional report would be “shared with respondents, complainants and implicated parties for comments within 10 working days”. However, even they would not be given copies.
“Those outside the security cluster, except the president, will not get a copy of the report, but will be invited to come and view relevant parts thereof at our offices.”
Madonsela said the new way forward had been conveyed to the ministers concerned, but that she had not received a response.
She warned that while she would review the security ministers’ 28-page submissions with a view to allay any security concerns, this would be done similarly to measures followed in cases where it was feared there were security risks to other heads of state. “What compromises the president of Botswana could compromise the president of South Africa.”
She berated the ministers for unjustly attacking her and trying to drag her to court for carrying out her constitutionally mandated duties after she shared her provisional report with them.
“(You can) call me naive, as one presumably sophisticated member of Parliament has already done, but I never anticipated what happened,” she said. “It is worth noting that the ministers in question did not and have since then never cited any constitutional or statutory provision that gives them the rights they claimed in court papers.”
Madonsela also lambasted ministers who accused her of launching parallel investigations on matters that were already being investigated by the Auditor-General, the Special Investigating Unit and the Public Works Department’s task team.
She argued that if this was the case, she would have launched parallel investigations into several other cases, including the alleged misuse of police intelligence funds for a security wall around Police Minister Nathi Mthethwa’s KwaZulu-Natal home; suspended crime intelligence boss Richard Mdluli; and the landing of a private plane at the Waterkloof Air Force Base near Pretoria.
The MPs who attacked her over her damning report into Independent Electoral Commission chair Pansy Tlakula were not spared. She accused them of attacking her without having read her report properly.
“I have been accused of investigating Parliament, and MPs have reacted very strongly. Why can’t they read before they act?”
lebogang.seale@inl.co.za
The Star