Public protector ‘must pay costs’

VREDE DAIRY PROJECT: DOCUMENT A ‘WHITEWASH’

In court to get the report, which protected high-ranking officials, set aside.

Public Protector Busisiwe Mkhwebane deliberately whitewashed her report on the failed Vrede Dairy Project to protect high-ranking officials, and should personally pay the legal costs of litigation to set aside her report, the High Court in Pretoria has heard.

The Democratic Alliance (DA) and Council for the Advancement of the South African Constitution (Casac) yesterday argued that the court should set aside the report, declare she failed in her constitutional and statutory duties and order her to personally pay the legal costs on a punitive scale.

Mkhwebane defended her report, saying the application was “steeped in politics” and part of a DA campaign to get rid of her.

She admitted not investigating one of the complaints laid by the DA, but cited budgetary constraints as one of the reasons for the incomplete investigation.

Mkhwebane released her report on the project after nearly four years of investigation into allegations of widespread corruption, maladministration and impropriety, but altered the findings and remedial recommendations of a damning provisional report by predecessor Thuli Madonsela.

This included removing Madonsela’s findings relating to high-level politicians who played a central role in the project and the flow of funds from the project to the Gupta family.

The DA and Casac argued Mkhwebane also ignored an equally damning 2014 report by the National Treasury which found former Free State premier Ace Magashule and former Free State agriculture member of the executive committee Mosebenzi Zwane were involved in various suspicious aspects of the project, including concluding a 99-year rent-free lease with Estina. They accused her of ignoring investigative media reports which they said constituted prima facie evidence of fraud, corruption, theft and money laundering.

Counsel for Casac, Michelle le Roux, argued Mkhwebane’s report was marred by fundamental irregularities, was startlingly superficial and that it ignored compelling evidence of looting with the complicity of senior government officials.

“It effectively whitewashes serious allegations of corruption against state officials ... the only inference is that she deliberately sought to protect senior government officials,” she said.

Changed damning findings of her predecessor