A march by opposition parties to the office of the public protector on Friday was an unprecedented attempt to put political pressure on Kholeka Gcaleka, the acting public protector, according to Eastern Cape premier Oscar Mabuyane.
The parties, led by the EFF and African Transformation Movement (ATM), demanded that an investigation report on President Cyril Ramaphosa’s Phala Phala farm complaint, lodged by ATM leader Vuyo Zungula, be released to the public.
Zungula’s complaint followed a criminal case opened by former spy boss Arthur Fraser against Ramaphosa and the head of security in the Presidency, General Wally Rhoode, accusing them of concealing a theft of between $4-million to $8-million [R68-million to R136-million in the current dollar/rand exchange rate].
Speaking at the ANC provincial executive committee meeting on Sunday, Mabuyane accused the marchers of encroaching on the independence of the office of the public protector. He also accused them of having already made their own preconceived guilty findings against Ramaphosa.
“They went as far as telling the public protector that she must release it [the report] even if it’s not complete because they want to use it to hold the president accountable,” said Mabuyane.
“From their utterances, you can see that they have already formulated the report in their minds that the president is guilty. The danger of what they are doing is that the PP [public protector] is a Chapter 9 institution that should be allowed to perform its functions without any political pressure.”
Mabuyane added that Gcaleka must be afforded enough time to investigate without fear or favour and only produce a report when she is ready to do so. Gcaleka is under fire from political parties sympathetic to the suspended public protector Busisiwe Mkwebane.
The Eastern Cape premier appealed to South Africans to defend the office of the public protector and other structures of constitutional democracy from similar attacks.
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