JUSTIN ARENSTEIN, Nelspruit | Monday
OUTSPOKEN Mpumalanga safety and security MEC Steve Mabona has launched a fresh attack on the magistrate who implicated him in a damning 1997 commission report into drivers’ licence fraud, branding him a racist in an emotional public tirade.
Mabona told a specially convened press conference he had no respect for Pretoria Chief Magistrate Heinrich Moldenhauer – South Africa’s second most senior magistrate – because he was a racist who had once failed to get a job in the provincial safety and security department.
The Moldenhauer report found that Mabona played a key role in the illegal issue of a fraudulent learners’ and drivers’ licence to parliamentary deputy speaker Baleka Mbete-Kgositsile and had interfered in anti-corruption investigations, misinformed both legislature and the provincial cabinet about fraud and corruption issues, misled the commission, unfairly attacked the press and used State funds extravagantly for his hotel and transport needs.
“Not only is there overwhelming evidence that Mabona did not know what was going on in his department, but there is evidence proving his lack of control and management,” the report said.
Mabona resigned and continued to earn a salary of roughly R16 000 per month as a legislature backbencher for two years until Premier Ndaweni Mahlangu reappointed him safety and security MEC in June 1999. He was awarded the key public works, roads and transport portfolios and has since regularly served as Mahlangu’s right-hand or acting premier.
“For a man like Moldenhauer, who wanted a job in safety and security but was not given it, to talk badly about us shows that he thinks just because we are black we are expected to take it,” said Mabona.
Moldenhauer denies being a racist, pointing to his groundbreaking transformation of the Pretoria Magistrates’ Courts, and has declined to publicly respond to Mabona’s allegations.
“I do not want to get dragged into a public debate on this issue. I stand by my report,” said Moldenhauer.
Mabona’s attack echoes earlier criticism of Moldenhauer by Mahlangu, who defended his decision to reappoint the fiery former homeland leader by alleging that the commission report was a “miscarriage without substance”. – African Eye News Service