Mabuyane fears losing job, wants probe stopped

Eastern Cape premier says charges ‘engineered to secure a political outcome’

UNDER-FIRE Eastern Cape Premier Oscar Mabuyane fears he may be expected to step aside as the premier and chairperson of the ANC in the province should he be charged.

That’s one of the grounds he cited in his application to the Bhisho High Court to halt the Hawks’ probe into him.

His application comes as pressure is mounting for him to step aside after Public Protector Busisiwe Mkhwebane released a scathing report on him.

She found that Mabuyane had “improperly” benefited from R450 000 of a R1.1 million fund from the Winnie Madikizela-Mandela Local Municipality.

The money was meant to ferry mourners to a memorial service for Madikizela-Mandela.

Mabuyane has indicated he will take the findings to a judicial review. He brought an application before the Bhisho High Court to interdict the Hawks’ probe following an August interview with them regarding the allegations. But the Hawks, through their national head Lieutenant-General Godfrey Lebeya, said the investigations against Mabuyane were completed in March.

The Hawks were awaiting a go-ahead from a prosecutor, Lebeya said.

Mabuyane described the investigations as a “fishing expedition” with “malicious goals”.

“Mabuyane said the charges against him “have been engineered to secure a political outcome”.

“Should I be charged, I would be expected to step aside. The DPCI (Hawks) is aware of this. Therefore its decision to persist with a completely baseless case against me well knowing that a judge would require me to step aside is a flagrant abuse of power,” he said.

Mabuyane views the investigation as a “political witch-hunt” driven by “certain elements” of the directorate in the Free State office. “There are no reasons why the investigation should be driven from the Free State, rather than the Eastern Cape, from where the alleged offences are said to have emanated,” Mabuyane stated in court papers.

According to the papers, Mabuyane had been informed by a “confidential source” that “certain political elements within the ANC, who are opposed to his leadership, are behind the investigation”.

According to Mabuyane, suspended ANC secretary-general Ace Magashule fuelled the investigation in an interview in May, alleging that Mabuyane has close ties with President Cyril Ramaphosa and, for this reason, the Hawks have not investigated the matter. The court application aims to compel the Hawks to provide Mabuyane with answers, which, he says, he needs to answer certain questions addressed to him.

In his view, he has already been characterised as a suspect by the Hawks, even though the directorate indicated to him that “since he is not an accused person, he is not entitled to such information”.

In his court submission, Mabuyane also questioned why the allegations, which surfaced in 2019 and hushed down after some time, resurfaced “a month after Magashule made public pronouncements” that the Hawks were not investigating him.

But during the Prayer Day rally for former president Jacob Zuma, Magashule rubbished the claims made by Mabuyane, describing them as baseless, as he did not have the powers to instruct the elite crime investigation unit to investigate anyone.

Hawks head Lebeya confirmed that the unit had initiated the investigation in May 2019 and, by March this year, it had completed gathering evidence.

Lebeya dismissed the witch-hunt claims, emphasising that all personnel within the Hawks had taken an oath of office to uphold and protect the Constitution, and to enforce the law without fear, favour, or prejudice.

“The investigation was never closed at any given stage. I am not going to be responding to the perception that is being created because that is going to form part of the answering affidavit (in court).

“(The matter) was initially registered in the Eastern Cape as an inquiry but at the later stage it was recorded as the docket at Park Road police station in the Free State. That decision comes from the head office as to who should conduct an investigation based on certain reasons.”