Cape Town - National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) boss Mxolisi Nxasana has not been offered a golden handshake, and nor has he asked for more money.
Briefing MPs on the parliamentary justice committee on the institution’s second consecutive clean audit, he said he disputed the claim
“There’s been no offer. I cannot take the matter further. I am not aware of any reputational damage between myself and the president.”
On a pending inquiry into his fitness to hold office, Nxasana said: “That is just that. There is nothing untoward in that. I can’t read any rift (between me and the president) into that.”
Although President Jacob Zuma some four months ago announced there would be an inquiry into Nxasana’s fitness to hold office, to date no terms of reference or any other details, have been announced.
During presidential question time in the National Assembly on August 21, Zuma told MPs he had “halted the processes that related to the inquiry” to allow for a meeting with Nxasana, which took place a week earlier.
“At the meeting he tabled certain issues to which I am still applying my mind. I will meet him again soon to take matters forward,” Zuma said.
This followed reports that former justice minister Jeff Radebe had asked Nxasana to step down after being denied top security clearance for, among other things, not having declared an acquittal on a murder charge when he was a teenager. Nxasana declined to resign, arguing he had disclosed that which was legally required of him to disclose.
The question over a possible payout to leave the NPA again surfaced during a subsequent media briefing on the NPA performance, and Nxasana repeated “there has never been any offer made to me by the president to resign, and equally, I’ve never made any demand of R7.5 million, or any amount of money for that matter”.
However, at the meeting between the president and himself, Nxasana gave Zuma information “I believed he didn’t have at the time when he made the decision to announce the inquiry”.
As matters stood now, the NPA boss told reporters, the president was still applying his mind to this information.
But Nxasana confirmed retired Constitutional Court judge Zak Yacoob recently completed an inquiry and report into leaking of information and alleged politicking among senior NPA managers. Nxasana, who was on leave at the time, said he would read the report and take it from there when he got back to work.
In June, Justice and Correctional Services Minister, Michael Masutha, said during a meeting with NPA managers he had appealed to all to maintain the “cessation of hostilities”. This ceasefire appears to be holding. The NPA has been in turbulence for several years amid claims of internal factionalism and leaks. For almost two years, before Nxasana’s appointment in late August last year, the NPA did not have a permanent head.
Nxasana said prosecutors across the country were doing their jobs. “People accept the processes… but it doesn’t detract from fighting crime,” he said. “The NPA is performing.”
According to the NPA’s briefing to MPs, court conviction rates were up, over 5 300 more state witnesses in sexual offences cases had received assistance under the Ke Bona Lesedi court preparation programme and the Asset Forfeiture Unit had obtained 363 orders to freeze assets obtained through crime valued at R705.1 million. A total of 1 323 plea bargains were finalised, of which just over half led to imprisonment. Of the 160 witnesses and 163 related persons on the witness protection programme only 12 had walked off.
Political Bureau