Durban - Public Protector Thuli Madonsela fears for the lives of the investigators who probed allegations of maladministration at the Passenger Rail Agency of South Africa (Prasa).
Madonsela said when she delivered her “Derailed” report this week, she had asked her investigators to sit with her during the live broadcast press briefing but they declined, to prevent their identities from being known.
Madonsela was at the University of KwaZulu-Natal in Durban on Tuesday to give her lecture on Women’s Month. During an exclusive interview with The Mercury, she said she was considering referring the safety of her investigators to the police.
undefinedShe said six investigators had to abandon other investigations to focus on the Prasa probe.
“The life of my staff is in danger. The ones who did the Prasa investigation are traumatised,” she said.
“They said they have been intimidated, they have been followed.”
Madonsela released a report on the Prasa investigation in Pretoria on Monday where she implicated the public entity’s former chief executive officer, Lucky Montana, in maladministration and flouting supply chain management rules, saying he had cost the agency millions.
She said during the media lock-in, soon before she released the report, the investigators requested that there be no members of the public in the room when they were briefing the media. “They were happy for the media to know who they are, but they did not want the public to know who they are,” she said.
Madonsela said she learnt about her investigators’ fear when they refused to have their names included on the report and when they were deciding who should sit with her when she delivered the report.
“Maybe we need to find out exactly what happened so that we can inform the police,” she said.
Montana lashed out at Mandonsela’s report on Tuesday, saying it created nothing but drama, and denying that Prasa had wasted billions of rands.
He said he would go to court to challenge it.
Mandonsela also raised concern on Tuesday about Parliament’s reluctance to accept her request for an additional R200 million in her annual budget.
She believed that this unwillingness was linked to her investigation into President Jacob Zuma’s Nkandla home and the Independent Electoral Commission.
“When the chief whip of the ANC (Mathole Motshekga) issued a statement, his statement just confirmed what we are saying. He says: ‘Over the years as the ANC, we supported the public protector’s budget which grew in leaps and bounds’, which is true until the IEC, and the nail came with Nkandla,” she said.
She said she needed the extra money to employ more investigators and also pay auditors for investigations.
“At the moment, per audit they charge us about R2 million. Ideally, per investigation we need about R2 million. What we are asking is far less, but we are told we are asking too much,” she said.
Madonsela said Parliament’s decision to prioritise Police Minister Nathi Nhleko’s report on Nkandla over hers was unlawful and unconstitutional.
“I have spoken to people in government and they know it,” she said.
Madonsela said the government would explain in court why it chose an illegal route to deal with Nkandla issue.
“Two political parties (the DA and EFF) have taken the matter to court. One of them cited us as respondents, so we will have to respond,” she said.
She said she was lenient with Zuma compared with other people who had been asked to pay back funds they had acquired wrongfully.
“We gave him a slightly different approach, not just because he is a president, but because the amount was obscene, and if we were to ask him to pay that amount he wouldn’t be able to pay it in three lifetimes,” she said.
Although Public Protector Thuli Madonsela is confident South Africa has always been ready to be led by women, she has little regard for the women currently in Parliament, who she said had failed to deliver on their constitutional mandate.
Addressing women during the Women’s Month lecture at University of KwaZulu-Natal’s Howard College in Durban, Madonsela praised the women who entered Parliament in 1994. She applauded the role played by Winnie Madikizela-Mandela, former speaker Frene Ginwala, Brigitte Mabandla and others of their time.
“After the Frene Ginwala group, what have the other women done? I am not here to pass judgement,” she said.
When asked if she had a desire to become the president, she said she would never be a politician.
The Mercury