Mkhwebane says she can prove she didn’t fiddle with Thuli’s report to help Ace

Public Protector Busisiwe Mkhwebane has said ANC secretary-general Ace Magashule was never implicated in the Estina Dairy farm project’s provisional report to begin with.

Mkhwebane is considering legal options following the High Court in Pretoria’s ruling setting aside her report into the R200 million Vrede Farm scandal.

Speaking on Morning Live on Tuesday morning, she indicated that she would make the provisional report – which she inherited from Thuli Madonsela – public to prove it.

She was responding to allegations that she failed to properly investigate those implicated in the Vrede scandal. During the interview, she urged Council for the Advancement of the South African Constitution (Casac) secretary Lawson Naidoo to not rely purely on “Gupta leaks.”

Naaidoo mantained Mkhwebane was being disingenuous.

“Mkhwebane has never explained why she altered the provisional report in material ways, which made far-reaching findings against senior politicians implicated in this project.

“She simply deleted the findings and remedial action without any explanation whatsoever,” he said.

“There’s nowhere where it’s mentioning that [then premier Ace Magashule] was implicated.

“The provisional report deals purely with officials. The report which I issued … I included all officials that were involved, because it was also the legal senior manager in the premier’s office who was involved in the drafting of the report.

“The way you’re mentioning it, Mr Naidoo, that’s not how we investigate. I mean you cannot rely on Gupta leaks.”

(Video courtesy of SABC)

On Monday, Judge Ronel Tolmay ruled that Mkhwebane’s report was unconstitutional and invalid and set it aside. This after the DA and Casac applied last year to have the report on the project declared unconstitutional.

The DA’s advocate Janice Bleazard’s application argued that Mkhwebane failed to investigate a complaint lodged by the party’s Roy Jankielsohn after he submitted three complaints on the project calling on provincial government and then Free State premier Magashule to be probed.

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