Madlanga Commission's interim report withheld from public

The interim report of the Madlanga Commission of Inquiry, which is expected to be handed over to President Cyril Ramaphosa on Wednesday following a three-month public hearing, will not be released publicly.

However, the final report will be released to the public with the commission advising Ramaphosa on areas that "are of national security sensitivity and how those areas will need to be managed".

This was confirmed by Ramaphosa's spokesperson Vincent Magwenya during a media briefing on Monday in Pretoria.

Magwenya said the reasoning for not releasing the interim report to the public is because some of the witnesses that have already appeared before the commission are going to be asked return to give evidence.

"Some (witnesses) have evidence located in specific areas but not as broad as it was meant to be. So, those witnesses are still going to be given a chance to return to the commission and give the evidence. So, it is not going to be helpful to start chewing and debating on something that is half-baked," he said.

He said the interim report will help Ramaphosa to get up to speed with the commission’s work as he has not had the luxury of time to follow the commission proceedings daily. 

"However, it will not be helpful for the witnesses, the commission itself and for all of us to start getting ourselves into knots for something that has not been completed," Magwenya said. 

He stated that there has been extensive engagement to ensure that witnesses appearing before the commission are provided with adequate security. 

This comes after the recent killing of Marius van der Merwe, known as Witness D, who was gunned down outside his Brakpan home weeks after sharing testimony implicating suspended Ekurhuleni Metro Police Department deputy chief, Julius Mkhwanazi into a murder cover-up.

Magwenya said there is an undertaking to engage with the media leadership to look into ways in which witnesses can be protected and not be unfairly exposed to those who may seek to harm them.

Regarding the whistleblowers’ protection, he said there is a process that is currently underway where “we have the Protected Disclosure Bill that is currently in consultation at the technical level of government before it proceeds to cabinet”.

The Bill, he said, covers all spheres of government in terms of obligations with timeframes around dealing with whistleblower information and also proposes the role of a retired Judge to oversee the level of compliance with that process.

Magwenya was asked about what South Africa (SA) is doing regarding the exclusion of the country from participating in the G20 under the United States (US) presidency.

He said: "We have strongly asserted that we don’t need to be invited to the G20 meetings. We are a full member of the G20. We are a founding member of the G20. Secondly, what the US is seeking to do is an affront to multilateralism and it must be challenged and it must be rejected by all members of the G20."

He added that SA has been in talks with other G20 members to encourage them “to express their own views as they have expressed to us, their support as well as their rejection of the US position which was taken unilaterally in a body that takes decisions through consensus”.

"What we are not going to do, which is not going to be helpful; we are not going to ask countries to boycott G20 meetings and G20 processes. We were against the US boycott. We will not promote any form of boycott,” he said.

However, he said, SA will continue to advocate for the ongoing championing of the issues that genuinely surfaced during the Johannesburg Summit to remain firmly on the G20 agenda “whether the US approves of those issues or not”. 

Such issues include inequality, how we deal with poverty and climate change, according to Magwenya.

He said the country is also in close discussions with G7 members to ensure there is “continuity breach substantively on the issues that surfaced and dealt with at the Johannesburg Summit into the G7 agenda as well”. 

“Some of the G7 members are also the G20 members as well," he said.

rapula.moatshe@inl.co.za