THE National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa (Numsa) has released a full statement saying it is ‘outraged’ by accusations that Public Protector Thuli Madonsela is a CIA plant.
Numsa said that the accusations by the Deputy Minister of Defence and chairperson of the Military Veterans Association (MKMVA) Kebby Maphatsoe were politically motivated.
Speaking at the tombstone unveiling of Umkhonto weSizwe combatant Linda ‘Lion of Tshiawelo’ Jabane in Soweto on Saturday. Maphatsoe was reported as having accused the Public Protector of being a CIA spy and of ‘undermining the ANC and the government to create a puppet regime for the United States (US)’.
Madonsela has said she will charge Maphatsoe with contempt if he does not retract his accusations or produce evidence of his claims within 72 hours.
The Public Protector is an office public advocacy body established by the South African constitution, similar to the office of ombudsman in other countries.
As Public Protector Madonsela investigated complaints regarding public spending on Zuma”s private homestead in the KwaZulu-Natal town of Nkandla earning her the ire of many in the upper-tiers of the ANC.
Her final report on security upgrades to Zuma”s homestead titled Secure in Comfort was published on 19 March 2014. Madonsela found that Zuma had benefited unduly from the R246 million the state had spent on the upgrades.
The report was met with much criticism and opposition from representatives of the ANC ruling party and shortly before her final report was made public, ANC secretary general Gwede Mantashe and cabinet minister Lindiwe Sisulu made public statements undermining Madonsela and her report dismissing it as calling it a ‘political report’.
Sexist and personal insults about her apperance were also made against Madonsela by Congress of South African Students (COSAS) Secretary general Tshiamo Tsotetsi.
Numsa in a full statement on Tuesday came out in defence of Madonsela:
‘As a union, we are also not convinced by Maphatsoe’s apparent back-peddling and denial of having accused Madonsela of being ‘a CIA plant’.
‘In what the Deputy Minister thought was a clever denial of what he is reported to have initially said, he continued to hurl insults at the Public Speaker on SAFM’s Midday Live programme on Monday 08 September 2014; arguing that he never said that Madonsela was “a CIA plant” but that “her actions resemble those of a CIA agent”.
‘Given the fact that all senior officials in the Public Protector’s office are obliged to sign secrecy declarations and are expected to undergo security clearance and vetting, we find Maphatsoe’s accusations preposterous.’
A week before the Deputy Minister who doubles up as a MKMVA chairperson made his utterances, Numsa issued a press statement where the union said that the sustained, savage and vicious attacks directed at the Public Protector from the ANC and the SACP ‘have now assumed very dangerous conspiratorial connotations’.
Numsa continued: ‘In that statement, we were clear that the Public Protector’s findings on Inkandla were fuelling all the fairy tales in ANC and SACP ranks.
‘On a serious note our statement cautioned South Africans that the ANC and SACP leaders’ defence of President Jacob Zuma “at all costs” may “signal an irreversible slide into lawlessness by the ANC and its government”.
‘How prophetic were we in our statement? Whatever Maphatsoe said, the law is very clear: sections 9 and 11 of the Public Protector Act state that it is an offence to insult the Public Protector or Deputy Public Protector.
‘Any person convicted in terms of the Public Protector Act is liable to a fine not exceeding R40000 or to imprisonment for a period not exceeding 12 months or to both such fine and such imprisonment.
‘Claims that the Public Protector is “a CIA plant” or “her actions resemble those of a CIA agent” are unlawful. They mark the slide into lawlessness that Numsa’s statement of 29 August 2014 referred to.
‘While Numsa respects the way the Public Protector has decided to deal with the matter where the Deputy Minister is given 72 hours to produce incontrovertible evidence of his claims or issue a retraction and public apology, as union we believe that the law must take its course. No one is above the law. Kebby Maphatsoe must face the music!
‘As Numsa we also feel that it is not good enough for the ANC through its National Spokesperson Zizi Kodwa to say that Maphatsoe’s utterances are “unfortunate”.
‘If the ANC wants society to believe what its national spokesperson calls “our support and confidence in the institutions established to promote and safeguard our democracy, the organisation needs to go beyond flimsy description of the MKMVA chairperson’s outburst as “unfortunate”.
‘The ANC needs to investigate Maphatsoe’s statement and take appropriate action. The organisation cannot just hypocritically wash its hands. It is the actions and statements of certain ANC and SACP leaders that have planted the seeds of hostility and hatred towards the Public Protector and her office. ‘Maphatsoe’s outrageous claims are nothing else but ANC and SACP leaders reaping what they have sown.
‘For Numsa to stop the rot, the developing personality cult and to curb all the hero-worshipping of the leader; let the law take its course and section 9 and 11 of the Public Protector Act be invoked.
‘The working class fought hard for democracy and against excesses of state officials. We will not fold arms and be idle when the likes of Kebby Maphatsoe attempt to undermine the institutions that we fought for so bitterly.’
In an earlier statement made on the Friday before Maphatsoe attacks Numsa said:
‘The National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa (Numsa) has noted the sustained, savage and vicious attacks directed at the Public Protector from the ANC and the SACP.
‘The attacks have now assumed very dangerous conspiratorial connotations: that the Public Protector may have deliberately timed her letter to the President, and its leaking to the media, to coincide with the EFF’s legitimate demands for straight answers from the President in Parliament.
‘There can be no better measure of the degree of rot, corruption and complete loss of revolutionary morality in the ANC and the SACP than the fact that in a country in which:
‘Average household size is 3.4, but is roughly 5 for African households;
‘Among Africans 55% live in dwellings with less than 3 rooms and 21% live in 1-room dwellings;
‘At least 50% of White households lives in dwellings with no less than 4 rooms;
‘Over-crowding and squalid conditions of existence are the order of the day for the Black and African working class; and
‘For the majority of the South African population, they live in small houses that are not consistent with household size!
‘Every day, across the country, there is violent conflict among the Black and African working class communities for access to houses, and these conflicts are compounded by the manipulation of housing lists and corruption in the allocation of the RDP houses. , and not the actual homestead, at an extremely extravagant cost of more than a quarter of a billion rands!
‘We further know that in 2010 more than 50,000 RDP houses had to be rebuilt because of poor workmanship.
‘In these circumstances, the President of the African National Congress and simultaneously President of South Africa has had a quarter of a billion Rands spent on “upgrades” on his village kraal at Nkandla.
‘More than 25 million Africans cram into houses with less than three rooms. And the President of the country, with the full knowledge of the intelligence and police ministries, spends more than R250,000,000 (two hundred and fifty million Rands) on his homestead, and we all must believe he was neither aware nor involved in the financing of his homestead.
‘The National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa condemns in the strongest terms the vicious attacks directed at the Office and person of the Public Protector Advocate Thuli Madonsella. She is, and has simply done her job very well, courageously, professionally and as stipulated by both the liberal Constitution and relevant laws of South Africa.
‘The Public Protector’s recommendations are very clear: among other things, the President simply must pay back the money spent on the structures the report accurately identified as having no relationship to security upgrades. This is what ALL SOUTH AFRICANS must be demanding from the President.
‘Threats to impeach the Public Protector, and linking her to party politics are malicious, insulting to the collective intelligence and wisdom of all South Africans of good will, and may signal an irreversible slide into lawlessness by the ANC and its government.’
The statement continued saying, ‘The working class cannot, and must not, allow either the victimisation of the Public Protector or the establishment of impunity by letting the President of the ANC and South African government get away with this so blatant and extremely reckless abuse of state resources.
‘We the Black and African working class, are the ones who have been robbed: we must demand that the President pay back what belongs to us. He simply must pay back the money, as the EFF so correctly demanded in Parliament.’
The statement concluded: ‘Should the attacks on the Public Protector continue, and should the President not indicate soon enough when the money will be paid, Numsa reserves the right to mobilise for mass action to compel the President to do what is right, what the progressive aspects of the Constitution and laws of South Africa demands of him.
Irvin Jim
Numsa General Secretary
29 August 2014
ends