This lady’s not for turning — or for muzzling

THULI Madonsela, the public protector, has one of the toughest jobs in South Africa. She must be left to do it to the best of her proven ability with the full protection of the constitution and without the sort of interference this newspaper reports today. The toughest task the job has so far brought her must be the current probe into the R200-million or more the state has spent on President Jacob Zuma’s country estate at Nkandla in KwaZulu-Natal.

With an election next year and the ANC already rattled by polls that point to declining public confidence, it is inevitable that Madonsela will be watched very closely by Zuma and the party he leads as she wraps up her report. They cannot afford any deepening of the scandal surrounding that waste of public resources. Nor can they afford to be seen to be undermining or seeking to influence her.

Madonsela has established a track record as possibly the most independent-minded holder of any of the watchdog positions created under chapter nine of the constitution.

She has delivered critical reports that have wounded and even toppled prominent public figures, from Zuma, in the matter of his failure to disclose financial interests, to Bheki Cele, who was fired as national commissioner of police after her report.

Critics charge that she over-interprets her mandate and goes where she ought not to go; fans admire the courage with which she takes on any investigation she considers is within her mandate.

“The mandate of the public protector is to strengthen constitutional democracy by investigating and redressing improper and prejudicial conduct, maladministration and abuse of power in state affairs,” says the opening line of the public protector’s website.

Her investigation into the possibly improper use of state funds to turn Zuma’s Nkandla homestead into a luxury estate with a bunker and underground tunnels would seem to fit within that part of the mandate.

The attempt, as reported in this newspaper today, to persuade her to abandon her investigation in favour of another by the auditor-general is a scandalous interference in the independence of the work of the public protector.

Madonsela was chosen by parliament from a list of strong candidates and, barring impeachment, holds the job for seven years without the option of a renewal. It is fundamental to the position that, although she must report to parliament, the executive should leave her to it and not seek to influence either the issues she elects to probe or the conclusions she reaches.

In a society riddled with corruption and suffering a widely acknowledged moral collapse, we would do better to build the capacity of her office than to muzzle it in any way at all.