Public Protector Thuli Madonsela invoked the legacy of Nelson Mandela again yesterday as she rebutted allegations against her and said she would continue “speaking truth to power”.
“I have never been accused of fraud and corruption,” Madonsela told journalists in Pretoria, insisting that the allegations were “baseless, without truth and malicious”.
Madonsela referred to how Mandela’s relationship with his one-time legal adviser, Arthur Chaskalson, changed once he became chief justice.
Chaskalson had to “judge” Mandela and in some decisions had found against him.
Mandela, however, had welcomed “this reversal of fortune as not only important for constitutional democracy, but also for helping his administration to improve its performance and remain true to the constitution”, Madonsela said.
“I would like to believe that the government that has put me in power has the same approach to the work I am doing as Nelson Mandela had.”
She said her office would be neither “sidetracked nor deterred” from pursuing its constitutional mandate.
“I have a job to do and I will do it to the best of my abilities. I will not stop speaking truth to power on the basis of impartiality and independence as demanded by the constitution.”
The Star reported yesterday that Madonsela faced arrest in connection with allegations linked to her tenure as a full-time commissioner on the SA Law Reform Commission (SALRC).
Madonsela spent much of a press briefing scheduled earlier to allow her to report progress on investigations under way dealing with the allegations.
She insisted she had never withheld the fact that a company she owned performed contract work for the Department of Justice while she was a commissioner and said the contracts had earned only a fraction of the R1.8 million she was alleged to have been paid.
She said the legal research company, Waweth, was involved in about three small contracts with the Department of Justice to the value of about R46 000.
Board
“My involvement in Waweth was always above board and at no point was it ever concealed. In a number of documents and publications of the SALRC where I featured, it showed that I was part of Waweth,” she said.
She questioned as suspect the timing of the report – on a day when it had been mistakenly reported that she intended making public her findings on the procurement of new police headquarters in Durban.
In February, Madonsela released the findings of a probe of a R500m lease for new police headquarters in Pretoria, which was highly critical of National Police Commissioner General Bheki Cele and Public Works Minister Gwen Mahlangu-Nkabinde.
Madonsela said that with the help of the Special Investigating Unit, the report was being reworked and would be made public next Thursday.
She insisted that she “was not at war with anyone” and that she had thought she and the government were “on the same side” in combating wrongdoing and corruption.
About 90 percent of the 1 500 cases her office dealt with in a year involved “bread and butter matters” – pensioners, and people with problems getting unemployment insurance, social grants or workers’ compensation paid out.
Such cases – helping “poor people who have been sent from pillar to post and don’t have money to litigate” – were seen to be “more important” by herself and her team than the politically explosive cases that attracted media attention.
Madonsela quipped that she did not know whether the police would be waiting for her when she left the briefing.
She said she was not alerted to any investigation by the police, who still would not comment yesterday. Justice Minister Jeff Radebe had assured her his department was not the complainant in the matter, while Police Minister Nathi Mthethwa had expressed surprise when interviewed about the allegations on radio.
“I don’t know who is behind this… I don’t know if this is dirty tricks,” Madonsela said.
She intended approaching Speaker of Parliament Max Sisulu to investigate the matter – and “not the executive”.
A “blurring” of the line between party and state was emerging as a “persistent problem” in her office’s investigations, and she would deal with this more fully in future.
She said that earlier this week Cele had “suddenly cancelled” a meeting with her that he had asked for.
Madonsela mentioned what she said were efforts to peddle damaging information about her.
“I don’t know what else will come,” she said. – Cape Argus