A DISPUTE over a Mail & Guardian article has stretched to breaking point the relationship between the Minister of Home Affairs, Mangosuthu Buthelezi, and his director general, Billy Masetlha.
A letter this week from Buthelezi to Masetlha concludes: ”I will no longer tolerate your open defiance and reserve all my rights herein.” Masetlha, in a spirited response, blamed an unnamed coterie of ministerial staff who he charged wanted to oust him so they could ”undermine the government”.
Masetlha also hinted he may leave the department: ”There is a much brighter future for me beyond being a civil servant and I intend pursuing that future.”
Relations between Buthelezi, the Inkatha Freedom Party leader, and Masetlha, a former African National Congress intelligence operative, have been strained for some time.
Buthelezi last year accused his director general of disciplinary infractions. A bipartisan committee of heavyweights, chaired by Deputy President Jacob Zuma, was set up to break the impasse.
The latest row follows an M&G article last month. ”From dompas to smart card” examined concerns that the department’s new computerised national identification system and a planned ”smart” identification card would invade citizens’ privacy.
The article stated: ”Buthelezi told Parliament in 2000 that the smart card would cost an estimated R2,5-billion extra to implement, but Masetlha this week said current estimates were ‘nowhere near R2-billion at all’.”
The article also reported that Buthelezi said he had asked former presidential legal adviser Fink Haysom to advise on privacy safeguards, but that Masetlha denied any knowledge of this.
The M&G has been leaked subsequent correspondence between Buthelezi and Masetlha. Angered at what he perceived to be his director general contradicting him, Buthelezi wrote on February 22: ”I request that by no later than the end of business on Monday you provide me with a draft rejoinder which I can send to the Mail & Guardian explaining the situation.
I would also wish to receive some justification for what seems to be a situation in which you have directly contradicted me.”
On March 12 – way beyond the three-day deadline Buthelezi imposed – Masetlha wrote back confirming he had told the M&G the cost was ”nowhere near the R2-billion”. He said that assertion was based on a detailed study, while in 2000 no study had been done so his department could not have given the minister ”any figure”.
He failed to address his response to the M&G on Haysom.
On Wednesday this week Buthelezi angrily wrote back, describing Masetlha’s reply as ”insufferable”. He pointed out that Masetlha had personally signed off the draft parliamentary answer containing the R2,5-billion figure.
”You contradicted me in the media on the estimated cost of the smart card as well as denying any knowledge of my intention to seek the advice of Professor Haysom on the project, effectively again calling me a liar in the media ?
”I asked you to correct your statements in the media. Instead my requests and instructions are met with arguments, arrogance and derision. I will no longer tolerate your open defiance and reserve all my rights herein.”
Commenting to the M&G, Masetlha hit back – but at an adviser of the minister, who he claimed had written the letter. He declined to name the adviser.
”This is the act of a desperate man, not of the minister. He will hit you until you are on the floor ? he is the most vicious man.”
He claimed the adviser and others in the ministry were engineering the split between him and the minister so they would have their ”hands free to do all sorts of funny things; undermine the rule of law; undermine the government”.
He said: ”Sometimes I wish I can kick some of these guys away from the minister. Some of these chaps are working for a government they don’t support, and for a country they don’t really love.”