Thuli fears for her staff’s lives
They were intimidated and followed during the Prasa probe
PUBLIC Protector Thuli Madonsela’s investigators who probed allegations of maladministration at the Passenger Rail Agency of South Africa (Prasa) fear for their safety and do not even want the public to know their identity.
Madonsela, who delivered her “Derailed” report on Prasa this week, said she had asked her investigators to sit with her during the live broadcast press briefing but they had declined to prevent their identities from being known.
Madonsela was at the University of KwaZulu-Natal in Durban yesterday to deliver her lecture on Women’s Month. In an exclusive interview with The Star’s sister paper, The Mercury, Madonsela said she was considering referring the safety of her investigators to the police.
She said six investigators had to abandon other investigations to focus on the Prasa probe. “The life of my staff is in danger. The ones who did the Prasa investigation are traumatised. They said they have been intimidated, they have been followed,” she said.
The report, released on Monday, implicated the public entity’s former chief executive Lucky Montana in maladministration and flouting supply chain management processes.
Madonsela said that during the media lock-in, shortly before she released the report, the investigators requested there should be no members of the public in the room where they were briefing the media.
“They were happy for the media to know who they are, but they did not want the public to know who they are.”
Madonsela said she learnt about her investigators’ fear when they refused to have their names included on the report and when they were deciding who should sit with her when she delivered the report.
“Maybe we need to find out what happened so that we can inform the police,” she said.
Montana has lashed out at Madonsela’s report, saying it “created drama” that Prasa wasted billions of rand. He has vowed to challenge it in court.
Madonsela also raised concern about Parliament’s reluctance to accept her request for an additional R200 million in her annual budget. She believed this unwillingness was linked to her investigation into President Jacob Zuma’s Nkandla home and the Electoral Commission of SA (IEC).
“When the chief whip of the ANC (Mathole Motshekga) issued a statement, his statement just confirmed what we are saying. He says ‘over the years, as the ANC, we supported the public protector’s budget which grew in leaps and bounds’, which is true until the IEC, and the nail came with Nkandla,” she added.
She said she needed the extra money to employ more investigators and also to pay auditors for investigations. “At the moment, per audit they charge us about R2m. Ideally per investigation we need about R2m. What we are asking is far less, but we are told we are asking too much,” she said.
Parliament’s decision to prioritise Police Minister Nathi Nhleko’s report on Nkandla over hers was unlawful and unconstitutional. “The government knows that. I spoke to people in government and they know it,” Madonsela said.
She said the government would explain in court why they chose illegal routes to deal with the Nkandla issue. She said she was lenient with Zuma compared to others who had been asked to pay back what they had gained wrongfully.