Public Works and Infrastructure Minister Dean Macpherson on Wednesday said he took personal responsibility to open charges against suspended CEO of Independent Development Trust (IDT) Tebogo Malaka and the trust’s spokesperson because he would have missed the public outrage had he not done so.

Speaking to the media outside the Cape Town police station, Macpherson also said he had made an undertaking that he would deal with officials involved in criminality.

“I think if I didn’t take personal responsibility over this issue, I would be missing how angry South Africans are about this. I have been very clear to the officials of the department that if it comes to light that you are involved in criminality, I will personally take you on,” he said.

Macpherson also said responsibility and leadership could not be outsourced to anyone else.

“I have taken the step to be here this afternoon, and to say that when I say something, I mean it. It is a warning to anyone who contemplates criminality that it will not just be a function of the department or the board, but they will come up against me as the executive authority entrusted to lead this department.”

Macpherson made the statement after he opened criminal charges against Malaka and IDT’s spokesperson Phasha Makgolane after they were captured on video allegedly offering Daily Maverick journalist Pieter-Louis Myburgh R60,000 to not investigate and report about the suspended CEO.

Macpherson said watching the video of Malaka allegedly offering Myburgh a bribe made him sick and left him in disbelief.

“It’s one thing to hear about corruption; it’s another thing to see it take place so blatantly and with a feeling of impunity. This stands in complete opposition to everything that I believe in and stand for.”

Macpherson also said he took an oath to serve the public, protect the Constitution, and safeguard the country’s precious public resources.

“This oath does not allow me to tolerate corruption. It does not allow me to make excuses for wrongdoing, and every action we take, whether releasing forensic reports, suspending officials only, or criminal cases, it is about building a state that is capable, ethical, and trustworthy.”

Macpherson said the allegations remained deeply disturbing and that they were not just a criminal act, but an assault on the institutional framework of government to provide services to the people of South Africa, especially in the social infrastructure space that the IDT is responsible for.

“Attempting to bribe a journalist to bury the truth is an attack not only on the free press, but on our democracy. It is an attempt to silence accountability, to undermine public confidence and to shield corruption from exposure.”

Macpherson stated that since assuming office, they faced fierce resistance, not just from within the bureaucracy, but through an organised and well-paid for and funded campaign to protect criminal entrenched interests when they began restoring order and integrity at the IDT.

“This network has been aided and abetted by political parties like ActionSA and the EFF, and sadly, members of the media,” he said.

“I have personally been the target and Miss Hill, by the way, of coordinated disinformation campaigns, including fabricated voice notes, false call logs and WhatsApps, which again, and it doesn’t surprise me, are circulating again this morning to try and suggest that Miss Malaka is a victim of all of this fake news articles which were published by outlets and even on the front page of some newspapers, and then they had to retract them once the evidence was put on the table.”

Macpherson said the narrative that he was paying journalists to attack the IDT was not only false, but it turned out to be a projection of what they were doing.

“They said we are paying journalists, and it turned out that they were then paying journalists.”

He was convinced that the attempt to buy cooperation was not an isolated incident and that the criminal charges did not exist in a vacuum.

“They are directly connected to the systematic failures and alleged corruption that we have uncovered in the PwC forensic investigation into the R800 million PSA oxygen plant tender, the findings of which are released to the public last week, that investigation exposed companies who awarded contracts without valid separate licenses, a project that ballooned from R216 million to R592 million and without justification.”

Macpherson added that the criminal case was the next step in ensuring that consequence management was not just a slogan, but it was a reality.

“I have also requested the new board to firstly investigate all contracts that were issued under Miss Malaka’s tenure, to trace the flow of funds linked to these contracts, to identify any additional instances of corruption or abuse, and then to take immediate action against anyone who has been found to be complicit.”

Neither Malaka nor Makgolane could be reached for comment.

mayibongwe.maqhina@inl.co.za

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