Hefer Commission clears Ngcuka
Matome Sebelebele
21 January 2004
National Director of Public Prosecutions Bulelani Ngcuka was "probably never" an apartheid agent, the Hefer Commission of Inquiry has found.
"Ngcuka probably never acted as an agent of a pre-1994 government security force", retired Judge Joos Hefer, who chaired the Hefer Commission that looked into allegations that Ngcuka was an apartheid spy and as a result abused his authority, concluded in a report released in Pretoria on Tuesday.
The director-general in the Presidency, Frank Chikane, and President Thabo Mbeki's legal adviser, Mojanku Gumbi, released the report.
Judge Hefer referred to the allegations as "ill-conceived and entirely unsubstantiated", adding that the charges of spying, levelled against Ngcuka by former transport minister Mac Maharaj and foreign affairs special adviser Mo Shaik had not been established.
"I have accordingly come to the conclusion that he probably never at any time before 1994 acted as an agent of
the state security service", Judge Hefer said in the 62-page report. "The suspicion which a small number of distrustful individuals harboured against him 14 years ago was the result of ill-founded inferences and groundless assumptions."
The report added that in view of this finding, the question of whether Ngcuka had misused the National Prosecuting Authority fell away.
Mbeki set up the commission last year following a news report by City Press, backed by Shaik and Maharaj, that Ngcuka may have been an apartheid spy and as a result had abused his powers.
Mbeki has fully accepted the findings of the commission. He has also backed up Judge Hefer's assertion that the establishment of the commission did not amount to a waste of public funds.
"I fully agree with you [Judge Hefer] that anything which may discredit either the institution or the office of the national director, or the person holding the office, is manifestly of constitutional significance and
indubitably of public importance", the President said in a letter to the judge.
After Judge Hefer expressed concern over the refusal by the security forces to give testimony before the commission, Mbeki said government would seek "legal opinion to determine whether the government needs to do anything to avoid a possible repetition in the future".
Source: BuaNews
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