Deputy Public Protector, Adv. Kevin Malunga,
CEO Themba Mthethwa and the Rest of the Public Protector Team,
Members of the media,
The People of South Africa.
Thank you for coming on such short notice.
The purpose of this briefing is two-fold:
1. To clarify some issues emerging from the statement made to the nation on Tuesday, November 3, 2013 by the Secretary General of the African National Congress (ANC) Mr. Gwede Mantashe. As we all know, the ANC is also the governing party in our democracy, what is says carries a lot of weight and therefore when there are distortions they need to be clarified.
2. To provide a status report of where we are with the Nkandla investigation, why are we at this stage we are in and to provide a road map on how the investigation will unfold going forward and the timelines for that process. In this regard, I request you to recall the roadmap I outlined on the 20th of November, upon which I intend to elaborate.
Before I proceed, kindly take note that the media briefing to release the Public Protector Reports that was pre-scheduled to take place tomorrow is going ahead as planned. I apologise for its postponement last week.
Incidentally, two of those reports have since been leaked. You will agree with me that there is nothing my office has benefitted from postponing the release of the reports and having them leaked to the media. If anything, the leak is likely to undermine an informed dialogue on these reports and therefore their impact.
You are aware that I have since decided that full provisional reports will no longer be given to affected and interested parties, which was issued on Monday. Please read it and so that you may establish on your own what we said and what we didn’t say.
The first thing I would like to address is what I believe to be values that I share with the Secretary General of the ANC as discerned from the statement he made to the nation yesterday.
It is true that:
1. Provisional reports should not be disseminated to the general public as they do not communicate my findings and final thoughts on remedial action. That is how our understanding has always been and that is how we operate. Until about a week or two ago, the leaking of provisional report had disappeared from our landscape. I had assumed this was because I have always appealed to journalists and editors not to publish provisional reports or documents purporting to be provisional reports from my office.
2. The affected and interested parties should be given an opportunity to address the Public Protector on the findings before they are made available to the public even though this is not a right but a practice that is embraced by ombudsman offices across the world and is in line with section 7(9) of the Public Protector Act.
3. The Public Protector has no role in politics. It is not for the Public Protector to advice or influence the exercise of the people of South Africa’s rights to choose political parties they would like to govern them. I am certain that this is a right the people of South Africa are fully aware of and I believe it is a right they would guard it jealously against any interference. I have no intention or interest to interfere with this right and have never done so.
4. Reports should be issued as soon as they are finalised. This is something I have pursued despite our limited resources. I will get back to the issue later regarding the cause of the delay of the release of this particular report.
In his statement, the Secretary General appears to suggest that I and my office have acted in violation of these values. To say I am saddened by how he has applied these values and arrived at the conclusions he announced yesterday, is an understatement. A closer look at his statement shows that he arrives at this conclusion purely based on incorrect information. Among other things, it would appear that the Secretary General did not have the opportunity to be briefed by the Security Cluster about where the process is and why is it where it is.
1. Incorrect statement 1– The Deputy, who accompanied him to the media briefing, says I said that my office leaked the draft report on security upgrades in the President’s Nkandla residence to the Mail & Guardian.
The truth -The truth is the statement, they rely on, which is a statement I released on Monday, November 2, 2013 says exactly the opposite. Please read the statement yourselves.
2. Incorrect statement 2– I now have a final report that I have now decided to release around March next year and that he suspects that I am doing this for elections. He also said the provisional report has been shared with affected and implicated parties.
The truth is I have never shared a provisional report with [the] affected and implicated [in the] report. I shared a draft provisional report only with five security Cluster ministers who were given electronic copies with passwords. They without talking to me decided to share the report with their departments.
In terms of the roadmap I announced on the 20th regarding engaging security cluster experts on alleged security concerns I was only sent the names of the people that the ministers have nominated to engage with me last night after close of business. We then wrote to the Ministers today requesting to engage with these experts on Friday.
My team is committed to work with the roadmap, which process concludes this year with a provisional report. The provisional report will not be sent to parties. Each party will be engaged on parities that concern them. We have always maintained this understanding.
3. Incorrect statement 3 – The Public Protector is sitting with the report with the intension on releasing it in March next year to influence politics.
I never said the report will be release in March next year. I said I was trying to have the report released by the end of the year but the likelihood is that it will be released in January 2014. The statements that we have issued have consistently said the report will be released at the latest by mid-January.
4. Incorrect statement 4 – That I was responsible for the leak to the Independent Media
The truth is that the article itself said two senior officials had informed the author. The issue I raised with the Sunday Times is that it is wrong to leak all reports, not just the last one. I never endorsed any leaked reports. There are two versions of the leaked reports.
The first was covered by the Independent claiming the provisional report absolves the president of wrong doing quoting a source in government. The second is the version covered by the Mail and Guardian. The comment in the Sunday Times was saying in my understanding there are two versions of the leaked report, why there was no outrage shown on the first coverage of the purported leaked report.
Roadmap
We have invited security experts; we will be talking to them on Friday.
From now on, we will not be giving affected and interested parties provisional reports. We will give affected parties snippets of potential adverse findings against them, giving them an opportunity to challenge them and provide evidence. We will give the interested parties allegations that are not substantiated to give them a chance to challenge us and present further evidence.
In an investigation like this we look at that had the authority to act, did this person act in accordance with the authority?
We will request a meeting with the ANC. A Stakeholder Consultative Dialogue meeting which had been scheduled with them was postponed. I request that my team and I be allowed the space to exercise our constitutional power and responsibilities to handle this matter with integrity.
Our approach remains the same: What happened, what should have happened; is there a discrepancy and does it constitute maladministration. If so, what is the remedy and who is the competent body to act?
Lastly, thank you to the people of South Africa for the support; we have been getting messages through emails, Facebook, Twitter, phone calls and so forth.
Thank you!
