How Mkhwebane courted Holocaust-denier and BFLF group

In December 2016, in her interim Absa report, public protector Busisiwe Mkhwebane wanted the South African Reserve Bank to “consider reviewing its lending policies”. But if she had other thoughts about how the Reserve Bank should go about its work, she did not say.

This week, six months later, Mkhwebane directed Parliament to change the Constitution. What motivated the change — which sent the rand reeling — is unclear.

But in the time between her interim and final reports, she had only two meetings on the issue.

One was with the department of state security. The other was with Stephen Goodson, a former Reserve Bank director, Holocaustdenier and collaborator with the Gupta-linked Black First Land

First group.

It seems that Goodson made quite an impression on Mkhwebane. “A must-read book,” she said in a social media post featuring the front page of Goodson’s book A History of Central Banking (and the Enslavement of Mankind) two days after they met in April.

Her Absa bailout report shows that both she and her predecessor, Thuli Madonsela, held no other meetings on the matter between July 2016 and the release of the report, other than with the state security department on March 3.

The report discloses no meetings with economists, central bankers or constitutional experts. Nor is there any evidence that Mkhwebane consulted the Reserve Bank, Parliament or any other body.

Goodson told the Mail & Guardian: “Unfortunately, the conversation which I had with advocate Mkhwebane is confidential and I am therefore unable to provide any details.” Because he is still under investigation by the Hawks for alleged secrecy breaches following his time at the Reserve Bank, Goodson said, he is “not desirous of seeking any publicity regarding this matter”.

Responding to specific questions on who had advised her on the Reserve Bank section of her report, Mkhwebane’s spokesperson, Cleopatra Mosana, said her “remedial action does not in any way amend the Constitution or violate the parliamentary process”.

Mosana said Mkhwebane was

“an independent thinker and was not influenced by anyone”.

As the M&G revealed in 2012, Goodson, then a Reserve Bank director, considers the Holocaust to be a lie told in service of a largely Jewish global banking community.

In January, Goodson was a panellist at a Black First Land

First event, invited by Andile Mngxitama to speak about the banking bailout at the heart of this week’s report.

“The ANC government is in the pocket of the bankers,” Goodson said at the event. “It is the bankers who rule this country.” If, through central bank reform, the power of this banking “enemy” could be broken, South Africa would have “all the development funds we need and extra”, Goodson said.

Mkhwebane said she had sent her report to Black First Land

First under rules that allow her to inform anyone she chooses about her findings. She did not extend a similar courtesy to individuals cited or implicated in the report.