Champion or media charmer?
I AM writing this third open letter to you because you have never responded to the complaint we lodged with the Office of the Public Protector four years ago concerning corruption and maladministration at the South African Post Office.
You have not responded in four years, yet you are supposed to be protecting the public. Is this not ridiculous, Ms Madonsela? What criteria do you use to respond when complaints are lodged with the Office of the Public Protector?
From where I am standing, it seems that you are selective. It appears that your responses and selections of cases to investigate are not impartial.
I have observed that the cases you appear to be most energetic on are those whose complaints have been submitted to you by opposition parties, particularly the DA.
For me, such complaints represent continuity of opposition politics. It appears you are highly relied upon in that regard. Since you addressed a DA rally in 2012, it has been very difficult to distinguish the politics of the DA from your selection of complaints and cases to attend to.
In addition, you seem to have adopted a politically charged style of work through the use of the media.
Your tendency to make comments that cast aspersions – almost of a smear campaign type – on people who are affected by your investigations is highly problematic. What makes matters worse is that you do so on reports you are yet to release.
In the past, we had Bulelani Ngcuka, who did the same to our beloved president, Jacob Zuma, Thabo Mbeki’s deputy at the time. Ngcuka used the media to find him guilty in the court of public opinion. This included off-the-record briefings with the media. Ms Madonsela, we fought against this abuse of state power. There is no reason in principle why it must not be fought whenever and wherever it rears its ugly head again.
I don’t recall you saying anything through the media about the South African Post Office complaint that was lodged by the Communication Workers Union in April 2011 in the way you have been doing about the cases of the Independent Electoral Commission chairperson and Nkandla, for instance.
This says a lot about your modus operandi. It would be naive not to think that such is part of a broader political agenda.
The union has been patient for too long. Perhaps you have thrown the union’s complaint away because it won ’ t add any mileage to front-page newspaper headlines or be paraded on TV to make you appear as a heroine who speaks truth to power – which I used to believe.
In your communiqué through your investigating team and your press statement in response to my first open letter to your office on January 10 last year, you said the report was in the writing or typing stage.
In the same period I received several communiqués from one of your investigating team members, contradicting what you said in your press statement.
Thereafter I received another communiqué from your office that said: “Dear Mr Matankana, this e-mail serves to notify you that our report writing into allegations of corruption and maladministration by SAPO is on the verge of completion. It is envisaged that same will be forwarded to you for comments during the week of 02 July 2013.”
Last October I called your office and spoke to an investigating officer who said to me: “The report will be completed by November 2013.”
We are now in 2014. Where is the report? Do you still have our complaint, Ms Madonsela?
It seems that you are cherrypicking cases that are already under media scrutiny and are, to borrow from your lexicon, “winnable ” and would therefore result in praise and applause from those quarters you seek to appease. How do you write or type a report for more than three years, dear public protector?
It seems to me you have decided to pick and choose cases while you shelve others; they gather dust without being investigated for reasons known only to you. I find this highly suspicious and irregular.
I repeat what I said to you early last year, Ms Madonsela. Your reluctance to deal speedily with the South African Post Office complaint from the Communication Workers Union leaves me with no choice but to conclude that the Office of the Public Protector under your stewardship is used for things other than the purpose for which it was established.
I conclude by saying happy new year, Madam Madonsela. I hope you will find at least one reason to be fair one day.
Matankana Mothapo is the national spokesman of the Communication Workers Union, but writes in his personal capacity.