President needs to come clean

WITH apologies to the Bard, we would all be fools if we did not admit that there is indeed something rotten in the state of South Africa.

Yesterday’s announcement that the Cassim inquiry into the national director of public prosecutions’ fitness to hold office had been called off by President Jacob Zuma is symptomatic of a cynical state that leaves us citizens totally in the dark.

Let’s start at the beginning. President Zuma has not been able to apply his mind to the appointment of a single “fit and proper” head of national prosecutions since he blundered by appointing Menzi Simelane in 2009.

Simelane had to vacate the post in November 2011 when his appointment was declared invalid after the DA lodged a successful court application challenging his appointment on the basis that the Ginwala commission found him wanting.

Simelane was replaced by acting NPA head Nomgcobo Jiba, a Zuma supporter who the Mail & Guardian reported as appearing to be so hellbent on protecting a Zuma ally, crime intelligence head Richard Mdluli, that she dumped three successive legal teams who advised that decisions to drop criminal charges against him were wrong.

Zuma then appointed Mxolisi Nxasana on October 1 2013, but a year later reports emerged that he had not disclosed that he had been acquitted of murder in 1985 and had not yet received a security clearance.

Now that Zuma has pulled the plug on the Cassim inquiry, the public will never know whether the president erred in this appointment or whether Nxasana bumped heads with those who are protecting the president and his allies from any form of prosecution.

Commission head Advocate Nazeer Cassim hit the nail on the head when he said the president’s ending of the inquiry left “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,” he said.

What is even more disturbing about this case is the rumour that Nxasana, like Hawks head Anwa Dramat and SARS deputy commissioner Ivan Pillay, will be given a golden handshake to leave.

There are clearly sinister motives behind this series of suspensions and golden handshakes.

Only our giggling, dancing president and his nearest and dearest know why.

And we, the taxpayers, have to pay and pay and pay.