Former transport minister Mac Maharaj on Tuesday dismissed the Hefer commission’s changed terms of reference.
He denied that he ever accused National Director of Public Prosecutions Bulelani Ngcuka of abusing his powers due to past obligations to the apartheid regime.
”Those were not my words, those are the terms of reference’s words,” Maharaj testified in cross-examination before judge Joos Hefer.
Maharaj conceded that he suspected Ngcuka of having an ulterior motive in investigating and pursuing him and other leading African National Congress members, as head of the prosecuting authority.
However, that motive could have had many bases, Maharaj held. It was not necessarily linked to Ngcuka’s alleged selling out of former comrades to the apartheid government.
Advocate Norman Arendse, representing Justice Minister Penuell Maduna, accused Maharaj of ”beating around the bush”.
Arendse said the terms of reference, changed last week to specifically name Maharaj and Mo Shaik as Ngcuka’s main accusers, remained in effect the same.
Since the establishment of the commission, President Thabo Mbeki has changed its terms of reference thrice. Maharaj said on Tuesday he would prefer the commission to stick to the terms as after the first change.
These did not name him and Shaik as Ngcuka’s accusers, with their allegations described as triggering the inquiry.
Speaking about Shaik’s investigation into Ngcuka, Maharaj said he had doubt that the conclusion was a correct one.
Asked by Hefer why he was so anxious to help the commission, Maharaj said he had always stood up for what he believed in and when he saw the democracy that he had fought for might become a ”shambles” he had come forward with the allegations.
”I wanted to understand because this conduct did not suit the profile of an ANC member. Here was an ANC member abusing his power … almost with impunity.”
Maharaj also accused Nguka of ”criminally defaming” him.
Maharaj further admitted on Tuesday that he accepted former Eastern Cape human rights lawyer Vanessa Brereton’s confession that she was apartheid agent RS452.
This was despite his and Shaik’s earlier conclusion that Ngcuka was most probably the agent operating under that code name. However, Maharaj said on Tuesday, Brereton’s confession still did not resolve the question whether Ngcuka was an apartheid spy. He suggested that information provided by Ngcuka to the apartheid government could have been contained in reports written under RS452’s name.
This was in line with the former security forces’ common practice of ”false flagging” to protect its informants, Maharaj said.
The hearing continues. – Sapa