Spooks sling mud at candidates
Would-be public protectors have been stunned by an intelligence report containing ‘baseless’ claims
Aflimsy two-page report flagging five candidates vying for the post of public protector has cast the spotlight on the ineptitude and administrative failures of the State Security Agency (SSA) and the South African Police Service.
Signed by the head of the SSA’s domestic branch in the Western Cape, Christopher Mbulelo Mavata, the report surfaced last week when the 14 candidates were being interviewed in Parliament.
It singled out the deputy public protector Kevin Malunga as the only candidate who “does not meet the security requirements” and raised questions about his citizenship.
It named other nominees for alleged crimes and, in one case, an alleged bad debt judgment, saying the “inability of a person to manage his/her finances could pose a security risk”. But the report did not declare that they did not meet “security requirements”.
The Mail & Guardian has seen the report.
When contacted for comment this week, the nominees were stunned by what they described as inaccurate information.
The SSA report was commissioned by Makhosi Khoza, the chairperson of the parliamentary ad hoc committee tasked with identifying the best public protector candidate to recommend to President Jacob Zuma. The selection process has never previously required the vetting of candidates.
But Khoza’s efforts seem to have backfired. “I have worked this whole week to expunge my [alleged criminal] record,” the pension funds adjudicator, Muvhango Lukhaimane, said when asked about alleged contraventions of the Liquor Act and an assault charge.
Lukhaimane described it as an administrative error by the police, which had mistakenly added her name to the national criminal record system in 2009 for being guilty of selling unlicensed alcohol.
She’s listed as “not guilty” for the assault charge, even though she was a bystander. Lukhaimane was never prosecuted for the two cases.
“I’m not sure how this could have happened. I worked for the National Intelligence Agency at the time and was again screened again in 2011. They did not pick this up.”
Lukhaimane produced a photograph of a letter from the Limpopo public prosecutions office declining to prosecute her at the time, and followed up with a letter from the criminal records centre confirming her record was clear.
“I have been liaising with the criminal records centre … I am trying to get the matter fixed, not because of my candidacy but for the office I now hold,” Lukhaimane said.
Further confusing the matter is that an old rape accusation levelled against an ANC favourite in the public protector race and another candidate’s suspension from the National Gambling Board didn’t make it into the SSA report.
But deputy national prosecutions boss Willie Hofmeyr’s 1976 contravention of the apartheid riots Act did. It states that he was found guilty.
Hofmeyr’s apartheid conviction, as well as two other charges against candidates Malunga and Jill Oliphant, both of which were later withdrawn, were in the SSA report under a section headed “the following individuals have criminal records”.
Zimbabwean-born Malunga is a naturalised South African but the SSA deemed him fit only to hold lowlevel “confidential” clearance — the second-lowest security level, just above “restricted” access.
The SSA’s report does not explain why he would not qualify for topsecret clearance, which, bizarrely, was never raised when he got the job as the deputy public protector four years ago.
SSA spokesperson Brian Dube said the agency “works with requests … no request was submitted at the time of deputy public protector’s employment”.
Officials could not explain what Act, regulation or policy requires topsecret clearance for the post of public protector.
Dube responded that the “National Strategic Intelligence Act, the same Act that empowers us, doesn’t exclude organs of state such as the office of the public protector”.
In contrast, the public protector’s spokesperson, Oupa Segalwe, said: “The requirement is that anyone appointed to the position must be declared a fit and proper person, just as it is in the case with judges, and as envisaged in the Public Protector Act.
“The person can, in terms of the Act, have access to any information from anywhere in the country and from anyone.”
Segalwe confirmed that the public protector, Thuli Madonsela, is unaware of any vetting process by a government security agency when she was a candidate and that she does not know the level of her security clearance.
Khoza said she commissioned the security checks because “the committee felt strongly” that the person appointed had to be fit and proper.
“We wanted to make sure that, at the end of the [selection] process, you don’t uncover skeletons that were never brought forward … I don’t want to preside over something that will become an embarrassment,” she said. But Khoza’s efforts to create a transparent selection process seem to have backfired.
The SSA did state that the report “should not be regarded as a permanent security clearance” and that the candidates must complete another questionnaire to be considered for a “relevant security clearance”.
Another candidate, advocate Madibeng Mokoditwa, was equally flabbergasted by a credit judgment for R302 665 registered against him in 2011.
“I am not sure what this is about … it might be for a house in Roodepoort, but it can’t be for R302 665,” Mokoditwa said this week, threatening legal action if the judgment against him was “fake”.
The M&G was unable to get independent verification of any adverse credit records for Mokoditwa.
Dube said the information in the report is “based on records held in various databases”.
He said Mokoditwa should provide proof if the adverse judgment has been corrected and then have it corrected with the “relevant databases”.