via Khampepe report on Zim election miraculously resurfaces | Mail & Guardian 23 MAY 2014 by Glynnis Underhill
The Mail & Guardian’s six-year legal quest to gain access to the confidential Khampepe report into the disputed 2002 presidential elections in Zimbabwe has taken yet another extraordinary turn.
The report inexplicably went missing from the chambers of Pretoria high court judge Joseph Raulinga in February this year, in circumstances he suggested at the time were suspicious.
In a further twist, the presidency’s original copy has now resurfaced, according to his registrar, Louisa Mangwagape.
The report contains the findings of South African justices Sisi Khampepe and Dikgang Moseneke, who were sent to Zimbabwe by then-president Thabo Mbeki to observe the elections.
Following the disappearance of the report, Khampepe confirmed she had an original copy and would hand it over if so directed by the Supreme Court of Appeal, where the matter is now headed.
After claiming earlier that there was no other copy of the report, state attorney Petros Rakoatsi wrote to Judge President Lex Mpati, stating that copies of the report should be delivered to President Jacob Zuma as his office had commissioned the report. Instead, Mpati asked the justices to provide him with their copy of the report.
The lengthy court wrangle started in 2008 after the M&G filed a Promotion of Access to Information request to have the report released.
The request was refused and the case has over the years proceeded through the courts, with the Constitutional Court ultimately ruling that the case should be referred back to the high court for Raulinga to take “a judicial peek”.
In February last year, Raulinga ordered President Jacob Zuma and the presidency to hand over the report to the M&G within 10 days. An appeal by the presidency against Raulinga’s judgment is expected to be heard in the Supreme Court of Appeal in the second half of this year.
The lengthy saga came to a head when Raulinga revealed that the Khampepe report had gone “missing”, and disclosed that Rakoatsi had made several unsolicited and unsuccessful attempts to retrieve the report from his custody, in his absence.
In a letter to the appeal court, Rakoatsi rejected any insinuation that he had knowledge of where the report was, or that he had a hand in its disappearance.
On Monday, Raulinga’s office advised the M&G’s lawyers, Dario Milo and Ben Winks of Webber Wentzel, that the report had recently “resurfaced”.
No further details of what transpired have yet been made available.
In an attempt to assure the report’s safe passage, Milo and Winks wrote to Raulinga: “We write to reiterate the request we made before we were aware that the report had gone missing, namely that the report be transmitted under seal to the Supreme Court of Appeal for the purposes of the pending appeal.”
COMMENTS
Mbeki Zuma. Traitors
The fight to reveal this report is pointless. The South African have a long record of not being truthful about Zimbabwe. Why would this report be any different? Hand picked ANC judges will have done what was expected of them.
hear hear John Thomas!
May the Lord Himself low the top off this report and the 2008 one. May every lie be uncovered. To the glory of God. God will only work with the truth. 2013 also!
It is unfortunate that this how things are done within SADC. They send plenty of observers but the report is a secret. Are we failing as Africans to rule ourselves? What type of democracy is this?
oh Oh hear hear hear!!
I strongly suspect that the resurfaced report has been doctored. Anyway who am I.
Aggressive Africa. We wonder!!!!
Nigeria has overtaken South Africa as the biggest economy in Africa. Let’s figure this out. Boco Haram is running amok in Nigeria, with kidnappings, car bombings, and killings with such callousness that shocks even the conscience of Al Qaida and yet it still overtakes the peaceful and “democratically” run South Africa as the biggest economy in our beloved continent? What has Nigeria done lately that it deserves the number one spot or better yet could it be what South Africa has not done to surrender it’s cherished spot? The latter is appealing to me, especially when I analyze the spread sheet of poor governance all over Africa and with particular Zimbabwe’s precedence.
South Africans just like us Zimbabweans we were for a long time and they still intoxicated with the hysteria and euphoria of independence. The ANC is not sparing them the over milked “we liberated you from the Boers” rhetoric. Poor South Africans, they are drinking the juice of deception whilst Zuma and friends are enriching themselves at the expense of ordinary South Africans. ANC is entrenching the culture of corruption which is exemplified by this supposedly lost and found report. By the time South Africans wake up to what is happening or not happening on the ground, it will be too late just like us Zimbabweans.
The South African economy is just running itself. There is nothing positive that the ANC is doing to really take credit of a good economy, hence the take over by Nigeria, a country bedevilled by terrorism. The economy is on auto pilot just like the Zimbabwean economy was for ten to fifteen years after independence because the “liberators” in both countries inherited very robust economies but without the intellect to run them. Unfortunately, auto piloting burns fuel very fast. Soon the South Africans will wake up and call their leaders to account but there will be no ledger or balance sheet, only populist rhetoric and the movie which we have repeatedly seen played in Zimbabwe will dominate the South African theatres only on a larger scale and one time biggest African economy will have gone to the dogs.Corruption is the game. Poor governance is the name. And Zuma doesn’t disappoint in how Africa is run. Well done Zuma you are just looking up north and taking notes from the great liberator Robert Mugabe. I pity South Africa because we know how this movie ends.
Mbeki does not give a stuff he is only interested in Mo Ibrahim’s money!
Zim=corruption. Abundantly cited. Readers might like to check with Corruption Watch.
“South Africa is currently ranked at number 72 out of 175 countries and heading downwards.” Thanks ANC. However, while most corrupt regimes are in Africa, they would appear to be well taught by Europeans.