Open letter to the president

Dear Cde President,

On October 15, a landmark judgment was handed down in the Western Cape High Court in the matter of Andre Lincoln v The Minister of Safety and Security (Case No A61/2018).

In about 1998, then Brigadier (now Major-General) Andre Lincoln was on the verge of exposing wholesale corruption among old guard securocrats who served as police “officers” under the apartheid regime when his offices were illegally raided and closed down.

To this day, nobody knows what happened to the covert dockets illegally removed and/or stolen from the offices of the Presidential Investigative Task Unit which Lincoln headed, set up by then president Nelson Mandela.

Fake charges were laid against Lincoln and he was wrongfully convicted in the Wynberg Regional Court in 2003. In 2009, high court Judges Jeanette Traverso and Andre le Grange overturned every single conviction against Lincoln.

In her judgment, Judge Traverso, with Judge le Grange concurring, said: “I am satisfied the magistrate misdirected himself in convicting the appellant. All the facts just scream out that there was no fraud in this case and once again, the magistrate was wrong. The record of this case runs into some 5 500 pages. The entire trial consisted of intrigue, name dropping and very little else.

“I had every intention of giving a detailed judgment… However, I do not believe that it is necessary for me to do so. In the circumstances I am satisfied that the appeal must succeed and the convictions and sentences on all counts is set aside”.

It is common cause, therefore, that the State should have settled this case instead of fighting General Lincoln further in court.

Lincoln was then reinstated in the SAPS and he duly lodged a claim for his salary, back pay, etc as the effect of the high court ruling was that he should never have been fired in the first place.

His rightful claim for reparation was ignored by certain State employees despite a serving minister requesting time to consider Lincoln’s claim. This was in 2010 – eight years ago.

In what appears to be a travesty of justice and wanton abuse of power, the minister was ignored and some public official/s saw fit to drag this matter out even further to the detriment of taxpayers.

The judgment on October 15 was a revolutionary victory for General Lincoln. But it came at a cost to the taxpayer as government must pay the costs of Lincoln’s legal team as well as the private advocate hired by some clever (or stupid) public official in the minister’s office to represent the State.

I sincerely trust that the State will not take this matter on review to the Supreme Court of Appeal as legal fees/wasted costs could already be in the region of R10 million, if not more.

This is a calculated abuse of the public purse and warrants a full investigation by Parliament et al, the auditor general and the public protector. I will be writing to you under cover of a separate memo where I will attach prima facie evidence for further investigation, without fear or favour.

In closing, please also guard against cheap political opponents who will use the contents of this open letter, written under my hand, for their own nefarious means.

Sincerely COLIN ARENDSE | Registered Taxpayer South African Citizen