SUSAN SHABANGU Shabangu not lined up for prosecution
COUNSEL for the Injured and Arrested Persons suggested the commission should recommend that the National Director of Public Prosecutions should consider prosecuting former mining minister Susan Shabangu on charges of corruption and perjury.
The commission does not agree with this suggestion.
There is no basis on which it can find Shabangu passed on to the president (who was not available on August 15), the cabinet (which was not sitting) and Police Minister Nathi Mthethwa (who was away on departmental business in KwaZulu-Natal) what Cyril Ramaphosa had put to her.
According to her evidence, Ramaphosa’s conversation with her was not the reason for the statement she issued on August 15 that the events at Marikana had escalated into a security or policing matter.
This is because the killings, assaults and damage to property were serious criminal matters that required police action.
In the circumstances, even if Ramaphosa did persuade her to change her stance on the issue, it is hard to see how any question of corruption could arise.
As far as the suggestion that she should be prosecuted for perjury is concerned, it is not possible in the commission’s view to find that on the issues where there were differences between her evidence and that of Ramaphosa (if one accepts, as the commission is inclined to do, that Ramaphosa’s version is the correct one) she was guilty of anything other than faulty recollection.