Mkhwebane lays criminal charges over leaked Absa report

Public protector Busisiwe Mkhwebane has laid criminal charges with the police over the leaking of a preliminary report into allegations that Absa benefited from apartheid-era loans.

Spokesperson Oupa Segalwe told News24 on Tuesday the charges were pursued in order to establish how the leak had occurred and who was behind it.

He said that in terms of the Public Protector Act, information could only legally be publicised with Mkhwebane’s consent.

“Leaking information dents the image of the institution and results in a trust deficit. It could lead to people not trusting our processes, especially whistleblowers who may not be identified,” he said.

Segalwe also said those implicated in the report may feel hard done by if provisional reports were published before they had been given the right of reply.

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Mkhwebane recommended in the draft report that Absa should be forced to pay back R2.25 billion as interest from a bailout given to Bankorp before the bank was acquired by the bank in 1992.  She also recommended that the president consider establishing a commission of inquiry into the apartheid-era looting of the state.

The report comes mainly from a 1997 investigation by a covert United Kingdom-based asset recovery agency called Ciex, which approached the SA government to investigate and recover public funds and assets misappropriated during the apartheid.

Ciex’s report, known as Project Spear, investigated how R1.5 billion was offered to the now-defunct Bankorp group of banks disguised as a bank “lifeboat”.

It is alleged from 1985 to 1991 the apartheid government, through the SA Reserve Bank (Sarb), provided Bankorp with a series of bailouts to offset bad loans that threatened the bank’s survival. It was in 1999 that Ciex suggested that Sarb should recover the billions from Bankorp, which had been taken over by Absa.

But according to Mkhwebane’s preliminary report, the government has failed to implement Project Spear, despite footing the bill for Ciex’s investigations.