I WONDER where Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan got the energy to respond to such a blatantly irresponsible campaign, which he correctly identifies as being akin to the dirty tricks operations of the "old security police" (Gordhan baffled by timing and deadline of latest Hawks letter, March 14).
As I read this article, I felt the deep, debilitating hopelessness I felt in early 1995 when, as the ousted head of the department of agriculture in North West province, I was accused in the media of corruption, yet was never charged.
Then MEC for agriculture Rocky Malebane-Metsing and I were caught up in a political storm that emanated from the contest between the supporters of the latter and those of Popo Molefe for the premiership of the province.
This tussle played itself out so badly that mysterious rumours of assassination plots were flying about. A Sunday newspaper even reported early in 1995 that Metsing and I were training a private army to destabilise Nelson Mandela’s administration. Having returned from exile with the African National Congress (ANC), our impression was that apartheid-era securocrats were still active in state institutions. We raised this complaint with the ANC leadership. This led to Mr Mandela dispatching a special National Intelligence Agency investigative team to Mahikeng in 1995 to probe our claim.
It is shocking that in 2016 a distinguished cadre of the struggle in a pivotal post is having to wake up to media stories similar to the ones we experienced in 1995. If this is the same forces that we dealt with, all I can say is that they are not to be taken lightly.
Nobody is above the law, and Mr Gordhan has to account for happenings during his tenure at the South African Revenue Service, but leaked letters and reports to the media, and the machinery behind this, must be investigated and stemmed.
It would be a reckless dereliction of duty for President Jacob Zuma to let these developments go by as if they are a normal feature of our "constitutional democracy".
Dr John Lamola
Sandton
Pravin Gordhan. Picture: TREVOR SAMSON
I WONDER where Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan got the energy to respond to such a blatantly irresponsible campaign, which he correctly identifies as being akin to the dirty tricks operations of the "old security police" (Gordhan baffled by timing and deadline of latest Hawks letter, March 14).
As I read this article, I felt the deep, debilitating hopelessness I felt in early 1995 when, as the ousted head of the department of agriculture in North West province, I was accused in the media of corruption, yet was never charged.
Then MEC for agriculture Rocky Malebane-Metsing and I were caught up in a political storm that emanated from the contest between the supporters of the latter and those of Popo Molefe for the premiership of the province.
This tussle played itself out so badly that mysterious rumours of assassination plots were flying about. A Sunday newspaper even reported early in 1995 that Metsing and I were training a private army to destabilise Nelson Mandela’s administration. Having returned from exile with the African National Congress (ANC), our impression was that apartheid-era securocrats were still active in state institutions. We raised this complaint with the ANC leadership. This led to Mr Mandela dispatching a special National Intelligence Agency investigative team to Mahikeng in 1995 to probe our claim.
It is shocking that in 2016 a distinguished cadre of the struggle in a pivotal post is having to wake up to media stories similar to the ones we experienced in 1995. If this is the same forces that we dealt with, all I can say is that they are not to be taken lightly.
Nobody is above the law, and Mr Gordhan has to account for happenings during his tenure at the South African Revenue Service, but leaked letters and reports to the media, and the machinery behind this, must be investigated and stemmed.
It would be a reckless dereliction of duty for President Jacob Zuma to let these developments go by as if they are a normal feature of our "constitutional democracy".
Dr John Lamola
Sandton
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