Zuma mum on ‘pay-off’
THE Presidency and the National Director of Public Prosecutions, Mxolisi Nxasana, were yesterday evasive on the details of an agreement that has seen President Jacob Zuma terminate the commission of inquiry into Nxasana’s fitness to hold office.
This came as speculation grew about the reasons for the 11th-hour decision to “cease” the commission, a move that the official opposition DA has described as paving the way for a golden handshake for Nxasana.
While The Mercury’s sister newspaper, The Star, understands that Nxasana is to leave office by June 1 as part of the agreement, neither the Presidency nor Nxasana’s legal team would confirm any details of the deal that saw commission chairman advocate Nazeer Cassim receive a late-night telephone call, with instructions not to proceed with the commission.
“I was contacted late last night not to proceed with the inquiry. I’m simply mandated to tell you that the inquiry will no longer proceed,” Cassim said yesterday.
By late last night, the office of the president had still not given reasons behind the inquiry’s termination, releasing only a terse media statement that Zuma “is currently engaging with Mr Nxasana with a view to taking decisions which are in the best interest of the National Prosecuting Authority, Mr Nxasana and the country at large”.
Presidential spokesman Harold Maloka asked for all media questions to be texted. But by late afternoon, he had not responded to any of them and his phone was on voicemail.
Justice Department spokesman Mthunzi Mhaga would also not talk, referring all questions to Maloka.
Mhaga also refused to respond to questions regarding the costs incurred by the government in the setting up of the commission, which would have included the cost of legal counsel.
Nxasana’s lawyer, Busani Mabunda, said he would not say anything “until such a time as the president has given reasons”.
Glynnis Breytenbach, the DA’s spokeswoman for justice, who was until last year a senior prosecutor at the NPA, said the termination yesterday would allow Nxasana to be paid off to leave.
“The DA believes that the termination of the inquiry paves the way for the president to push Mr Nxasana out of office by offering him a pay-off.
“This has increasingly become the ANC’s way of ridding themselves of those who try to carry out their duties without fear or favour,” said Breytenbach.
The commission was also expected to probe whether Nxasana’s statements in the media during which he alleged there was a plot to have him removed from his position, undermined or brought into disrepute the office of the NDPP.
Justice Minister Michael Masutha’s submission to the nowdefunct commission showed how the Presidency was, before the 11th-hour decision to terminate the commission, ready to call into question Nxasana’s integrity and accuse him of deliberately withholding information while applying for the job.
In his submission, Masutha shared Constitutional Court Justice Edwin Cameron’s sentiments on the NPA appearing to “be in a chaotic and dysfunctional state”.
Justice Cameron said he was not suggesting that “the dysfunctionality and chaos in the NPA can or should be attributed solely to Mr Nxasana, but his integrity has been called into question and a determination by the inquiry as to whether Mr Nxasana is fit and proper and has the necessary integrity, is a prerequisite as a starting point for restoring public confidence in the NPA”.
In a letter dated August 1, 2014, and addressed to Zuma, Nxasana said his previous brushes with the law had not prohibited him from joining the legal profession.
The requirements for appointment as an attorney or advocate were the same as those for the national director of public prosecutions post. “The fit and proper test to admission as an attorney is the same or substantially similar to the fit and proper test for appointment as NDPP,” he wrote.
But in submissions to the commission, Masutha disagreed, saying “the test for appointment as NDPP is in fact even more strict” as the person represented the State, the community at large and the interest of justice as opposed to just a single client.