‘Nefarious’ reasons behind Absa report leak
FORMER public protector Thuli Madonsela has said she cannot exclude attributing the leaking of the Absa apartheid looting report to “nefarious” reasons.
Madonsela was speaking to the Cape Town Press Club yesterday where she expressed her shock at the leaking of the draft report after having promised discretion to the affected parties.
Last week the Mail & Guardian reported being in possession of an electronic version of the preliminary report following investigations into looting of the state coffers by the apartheid regime.
According to reports, the remedial actions of the report signed by Mandonsela’s successor, Busisiwe Mkhwebane, includes Absa having to pay back R2.25billion for a financial bailout by the apartheid government.
The report found that the apartheid government provided bailouts to Bankorp, which was later bought by Absa, in the 1980s.
Barclays Africa, which owns Absa, the Reserve Bank, the National Treasury and the Presidency have been given until February 28 to make submissions to the public protector’s office before a final report is drafted.
Reserve Bank governor Lesetja Kganyago, who is studying the report, has reportedly found inaccuracies.
Mandonsela told how she took to investigating the matter back in 2011 by herself after her office first turned it down based on the fact that it was too outdated. Advocate Paul Hoffman had first approached her office with it.
“We needed to answer the question of whether the money was legally recoverable. We firstly had to look at the behaviour of the government on receiving the Davis report and say ‘was there wrongdoing in how those reports were dealt with’ and based on that we arrived at the conclusion I arrived at,” said Madonsela.
She would not be commenting on whether the current report was altered, but said the report was all but finished when she left and she was only barred by an “administrative error” from putting her signature on it.
“I do have a view on that, but I choose not to comment on whether that report is the same as the one I left or whether or not both the conclusions about who did anything wrong and the remedial action are mine or not,” she said.
Madonsela said historically the leaking and sometimes theft of reports have always been for “nefarious” reasons.
She said during her tenure, certain provisions were put in place to guard against such incidents, but did not know whether Mkhwebane followed the similar guidelines.