Acting Public Protector Kholeka Gcaleka said her team was making progress on the final report on the Phala Phala farm scandal, during an address that was interrupted by protests from the EFF’s student wing.
DURBAN – Acting Public Protector Kholeka Gcaleka said her team was making progress on the final report on the Phala Phala farm scandal, during an address that was interrupted by protests from the EFF’s student wing.
Gcaleka was addressing a Youth Month event at Howard College at the University of KwaZulu-Natal (UKZN) when students interrupted and demanded to know why EFF leader Julius Malema had been denied an opportunity to address students on Youth Day. They also accused Gcaleka of not holding President Cyril Ramaphosa to account in her findings in the preliminary report on Phala Phala.
The event was then moved to another venue and Gcaleka said the report was undergoing quality assurance checks and was at its final stages.
Gcaleka in March cleared Ramaphosa of any wrongdoing in the preliminary report, saying she found no basis to conclude that he contravened the Executive Ethics Code, but she made adverse findings against the police and how they had handled the matter.
James Shange, the chairperson of the EFF student representatives council at Howard College, said Gcaleka had been heckled because she had failed to hold Ramaphosa to account over Phala Phala.
“There is prima facie evidence that the president abused his power when state resources were used to investigate the house robbery. We did not want to listen to someone speaking about accountability when the president is not held to account.”
Shange added that a request that Malema address students on Youth Day had been denied.
Normah Zondo, UKZN’s executive director for corporate relations, said the Youth Month event held in the School of Law at Howard College was briefly disrupted by a small group of students.
“The event continued smoothly with no further interruptions after it was relocated to another venue within the campus. UKZN condemns this incident but will not speculate on the reasons for the disruption as the circumstances around the incident are being investigated,” Zondo said in a statement.
Responding to the disruptions, Gcaleka said they were not unexpected.
“The country is not going through a smooth sailing of events. There are several contradictions and views regarding different events. The Office of the Public Protector has to remain resilient, true to our mandate and continue to do our work without any fear, favour or prejudice – impartially and independently.”
Gcaleka said one of the challenges was to ensure the government was accountable to people and to ensure there was ethical leadership.
“The government must provide services in a manner dictated by the Constitution, and those who deliver services must be responsible because those are public funds.”
Gcaleka was asked about the effectiveness of her office in its role as a watchdog for citizens of the country.
“The Office of the Public Protector has the power to take binding legal action, and what we have submitted to the minister of justice to enforce that power is an amendment to the Public Protector Act, where we criminalise the non-implementation of our remedial action.
“If you do not implement or do not take us on review, it will be contempt of the public protector, so that is the enforcement we are seeking to add to the powers that we have in the Constitution.”
She said her office was busy with the final stages of the Phala Phala report.
In her report in March, Gcaleka stressed the parameters of the law within which she was working.
She took over the investigation from suspended advocate Busisiwe Mkhwebane.
“The allegation that the president improperly and in violation of the provisions of the Executive Ethics Code exposed himself to any risk of a conflict between his constitutional duties and obligations and his private interests arising from, or affected by, his alleged paid work at Phala Phala farm is not substantiated,” wrote Gcaleka in the report.
She found that presidential protection unit head Major-General Wally Rhoode and Sergeant Hlulani Rikhotso, who both assisted with the unofficial investigation, acted improperly in their handling of the investigation and in contravention of the South African Police Service Act and SAPS discipline regulations.
