Security agency falsehoods sabotaged us, say would-be public protectors
SOME of the contenders for the public protector post are accusing the State Security Agency of having prejudiced their chances of getting the job after it submitted false information on their background checks to the legislature.
It emerged this week that some of the information provided by the agency to the ad hoc committee set up to appoint the new public protector was factually incorrect.
Candidates wrote to the committee following their interviews last week to dispute the SSA’s background checks and produced proof that the agency had supplied wrong information.
Some of the candidates are now considering a court challenge to the process followed by parliament to find a replacement for Thuli Madonsela, whose seven-year term ends in October.
But the chairwoman of the ad hoc committee, Makhosi Khoza, has insisted that they ran a fair process and nobody had been prejudiced.
“There is no way we could have known there were issues. We allowed candidates to bring the information to refute the claims so it has no material bearing on the process.”
Advocate Chris Mokoditwa, who was confronted in his interview about a bank default judgment against him, has since shown that the judgment was rescinded.
Advocate Muvhango Lukhaimane, alleged to have been found guilty of illegally NO HARM DONE: Makhosi Khoza chaired the selection panel trading in liquor, sent a police clearance certificate proving that she had no criminal record.
The SSA also alleged that deputy public protector Kevin Malunga, who until last week was considered one of the SECURITY MIX-UP: Deputy public protector Kevin Malunga frontrunners to succeed Madonsela, did not have security clearance.
But the office of the state law adviser has since told parliament that such clearance was not a legal requirement for the job.
The agency failed to pick up that former deputy public protector Mamiki Goodman had been suspended from her job at the National Gambling Board and had not disclosed this to parliament.
EFF MP Floyd Shivambu said the SSA information was “extremely prejudicial to some candidates”.
Asked if he felt prejudiced by the process, Malunga said: “Of course I do. The letter that was brought into the interview was both factually incorrect and legally suspect, but I was still viciously attacked on that basis. I will not pursue it, however.”
Malunga said he would continue in his job as deputy public protector.
Mokoditwa said the bank judgment information had come like a “bombshell”.
“I was a bit muddled up. I was prejudiced in a way because I was rattled,” he said.
He said he was considering legal action, but was still looking at the various avenues available to him.
DA MP Glynnis Breytenbach said the information was “shoddy” and had “slandered” some candidates.
Breytenbach said she would take up the matter with the joint standing committee on intelligence.
Brian Dube, spokesman for the Department of State Security, said the screenings
The letter was incorrect, but I was still viciously attacked
were just an “initial process” conducted by searching for readily available information, such as entries in the police database of criminal records.
In the case of Lukhaimane, the information had been incorrectly entered in the police database, he said.