Zuma pulls plug on probe of NPA boss
Concerns as phone call ends Cassim Inquiry
IT took an early-morning call and less than five minutes for the Cassim Inquiry into the national director of public prosecutions’ fitness to hold office to start and end.
Now we will never know whether President Jacob Zuma did his homework when appointing embattled Mxolisi Nxasana to the position.
Instead, it is believed Zuma is in final negotiations to have Nxasana resign with a golden handshake.
This would be the latest in a string of public-official suspensions or inquiries that have led to resignations and large payouts.
Advocacy group Freedom Under Law (FUL) is preparing to launch a constitutional challenge against the suspensions, inquiries and financial settlements of a string of top public officials at the Hawks, the South African Revenue Service and, now, the NPA.
The Cassim Inquiry was ordered by Zuma 10 months ago. It was going to look into Nxasana’s fitness to hold office after it was discovered that he had been arrested 29 years ago for murder and assault.
He was acquitted of murder after the Durban Magistrate’s Court ruled the killing was in self-defence, and he paid a R50 fine for assaulting his then girlfriend.
Commission head Advocate Nazeer Cassim, speaking yesterday in his personal capacity after telling the inquiry that Zuma had, in an early-morning telephone call, ordered the inquiry’s termination, said Nxasana’s previous convictions had to be seen in context. “I would have wanted an explanation from Nxasana on these,” he said in an interview with Radio 702’s Midday Report.
“This leaves the question as to why the presidency didn’t do its homework. It can’t be the case that if you don’t like the person, you then do your homework.”
Decrying the NPA’s leadership, Cassim told The Times the organisation could do much better.
“The country must have an independent public service and the public service owes its obligation to the people, not the government of the day.
“South Africa has top-quality people who can run the NPA, and I don’t see why we can’t avoid all these unnecessary political skirmishes that they have within the organisation. The job of the NPA is to prosecute crime and to con- cern itself with the orderly administration of law and order.”
Cassim declined to comment on the president’s reasons for calling off the inquiry, saying it was his prerogative.
In his interview with Midday Report, he said it was possible that someone was going to be asked questions at the inquiry they would not want to answer.
“It’s a fair inference that someone struck a deal,” he said.
The inquiry has been seen as a means of protecting Zuma’s apparent confidant within the National Prosecuting Authority, Advocate Nomgcobo Jiba.
Nxasana, who recently ordered Jiba’s prosecution for fraud, and his deputy have been at loggerheads for months.
The rift, which Jiba yesterday laughed off, is said to centre in part around former crime intelli- gence chief Richard Mdluli, who Nxasana ordered be prosecuted.
Mdluli is also viewed as a staunch Zuma ally.
DA justice shadow minister Glynnis Breytenbach said: “You cannot see this as anything more than someone being paid off to keep quiet. The way to get rid of inconvenience is to pay people off so no dirty linen is aired in public.
“Nxasana’s attempts to reinstate charges of murder, kidnapping and defeating the ends of justice against Mdluli have put his job on the line.
“It’s no secret Mdluli is a close ally of Zuma and was deployed to crime intelligence to protect the president from accountability.”
Jiba told The Times: “I have no comment on any of the allegations or reports coming from this cessation of the inquiry that it would benefit me. I have no working relationship with the president.”
FUL chairman, retired Justice Johann Kriegler, said the organisation was about to launch a constitutional challenge to the string of suspensions and settlements conducted under “compulsion or extreme moral pressure from those in control”.
“The list is endless – [Hawks head Lieutenant-General Anwa] Dramat, [SARS deputy commissioner Ivan] Pillay and Nxasana.
“What I can say is there is an abnormal influence at play.
“Who benefits exactly is unknown, but who doesn’t is you and I and the rest of South Africa.”
Paul Hoffman of the Institute of Accountability said the canning of the inquiry made it look as if the grounds for investigating Nxasana were manufactured.
Presidency spokesman Harold Maloka said yesterday: “The president is currently engaging with Nxasana with a view to taking decisions which are in the best interests of the NPA, Nxasana and the country.”