Phosa critique blocked

A hard-hitting document by former Mpumalanga premier Matthews Phosa criticising the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) for being compromised by party politics was held back ‘for sterilisation” by the ANC’s top brass, an ANC leader has told the Mail & Guardian.

Phosa has been a brooding anti-Thabo Mbeki presence in the ANC’s national executive committee since he was removed as Mpumalanga premier and later accused, with two other ANC businessmen, of plotting against the president.

His review of the NPA is a thinly veiled critique of the corruption investigation of Jacob Zuma.

The ANC leader said Phosa’s document had been withheld by the party’s national working committee last month for editing before it would be released to party branches. He had prepared it for release with 13 other documents for debate ahead of the ANC’s national policy conference in June.

But the decision to censor it angered the Youth League, which has called on the party’s leadership to release it.

Their invitation to Phosa, a lawyer by training, to deliver a speech titled ‘A constitutional democracy: room for improvement” at their policy conference at the weekend is viewed as a political device used by the league to reveal the substance of his critique.

In his speech, Phosa questioned the effectiveness of the NPA as well as South Africa’s Chapter Nine institutions. He suggested that the NPA’s independence had been compromised by ‘political affiliations and party politics”.

‘There is a strongly held view across political divides that, in some instances, a perception exists that [the Chapter Nine] institutions are merely an extension of the state, and specifically the executive — If such institutions act in a way that they are perceived as an extension of an institution of the public sector or [are] overprotective of the ruling party rather than the general public, its operations can become counterproductive to the broadening of [South Africa’s] democracy,” he said.

The M&G understands that, when Phosa presented his discussion document at an NEC meeting last month where all the policy documents were reviewed, he asked Mbeki tough questions about why he had failed to implement the findings of the Khampepe Commission, including its call to review the separation of the NPA from the South African Police Service.

In his speech, Phosa suggested that the current legislation governing the NPA and the Scorpions was fundamentally flawed and could ‘lead to long and drawn-out legal battles”.

‘It remains my view that the current legislation can be successfully challenged through our Appeals system as well as the Constitutional Court.

‘My appeal to the authorities and our party is a simple one: if something is broken, let’s fix it and, in that process, make a small contribution to a more productive legal system,” he said.

Phosa questioned the perceived power imbalance between the state and the ANC, and echoed the left’s complaint that the party has been subsumed by the government under Mbeki’s presidency.

‘It is a strongly held view that the communication between the ANC and government should be improved as well as the ability of the ANC to formulate policy positions in its ongoing discussion with government,” he said. ‘History has proven that the more the state controls the party, the weaker the political basis of the party becomes.”

The youth league subsequently took a resolution at its policy dialogue that the NPA’s policing functions should be absorbed into the SAPS and their prosecutorial functions into the judicial system.

Responding to media inquiries, Mbeki warned against the ANC destroying the credibility of institutions it had created. He said it was acceptable for the NPA to be criticised, but not to the point where its credibility was destroyed.

Phosa was indirectly affirming Zuma’s complaint that the NPA has been used in a political campaign against him.