But until now, the authorities have not focused on A.N.C. officials who were central to the corruption that has thrived in recent years. Mr. Ramaphosa, who became party leader by a narrow margin in December and is dealing with deep divisions inside his party, has so far shown little appetite for going after A.N.C. figures. In fact, he named to his cabinet several people accused of corruption in the past.
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The public protector’s office was established after the end of apartheid to act as a government ombudsman and to help South Africa’s young and fragile democracy.
Thulisile Madonsela, who held the office from 2009 to 2016, was considered particularly effective in checking abuses by the scandal-plagued Mr. Zuma. He replaced her with Ms. Mkhwebane, who has acted timidly in comparison.
Ms. Mkhwebane quietly released her 65-page report on the dairy farm just days before Mr. Zuma was forced to step down. It immediately drew criticism from both the opposition and governing-party officials.
Mmusi Maimane, the leader of the main opposition party, Democratic Alliance, castigated her for what he called the “manifold omissions in the report, and failures to investigate even that which is in the public domain.” Specifically, he accused her of failing to hold Mr. Magashule and Mr. Zwane to account.
Her report was severely limited in scope. It did not investigate how Estina, the company contracted for the dairy project, spent the public funds it received for the project, or whether it had inflated its project costs. Nor did it look into how would-be beneficiaries were sidelined, citing “a lack of information.”
But the report did find that the Free State’s agreement with Estina was invalid because the province had not followed procurement rules. The province failed to manage or monitor the project and instead paid Estina without demanding invoices and receipts, according to the report. The Free State continued to pay Estina over $11 million after the National Treasury ordered it to halt such payments, her office found.
In an interview before Ms. Mkhwebane’s decision to investigate the two A.N.C. officials, Mathole Motshekga, the chairman of Parliament’s justice committee, said that justice could be carried out only by investigating the roles that Mr. Magashule and Mr. Zwane played in the case.
“What has gone wrong has gone wrong under their watch,” he said. “We expect, and the public expects, that they should take responsibility for what has happened. We are waiting to hear what they have to say, because we don’t expect people in such positions to be absentee landlords.”
Source : Nytimes
