Fresh from taking on president Jacob Zuma over public spending on his Nkandla love pad and exposing corrupt deals at PRASA, she spoke at a Women’s Month event at the University of KwaZulu-Natal in Durban when she explained why she is such a fighter.
She said her cases are about ‘Gogo Dlamini’. “Gogo Dlamini is our typical grandmother, or a single person who believes that she has been wronged by the state but does not have the means to face the state head on.’’ Therefore she – Madonsela – takes on these cases on Gogo Dlamini’s behalf.
Times Live quotes Madonsela as responding to questions if she wants to be president by saying: “No. I am not even ready to be a politician. I am happy to do what I can… In our society there is space for civil society. But it is a question of consolidating those little things that are happening in civil society to make sure that those that we entrust with public power are accountable, and that’s where I want to be.”
Asked if South Africa were ready for a woman president, she said: “It always has been ready for a woman president.” But she said this did not mean that “come hell or high water, there must be a woman president… I don’t want a woman president or a man president. I want a president who will expand the frontiers of freedom, justice and constitutionalism in this country .”
Madonsela is our hero for producing the ‘Secure in Comfort’ report stating that President Jacob Zuma had unduly benefited from “security upgradings” to his Nkandla homestead. Her most recent is called “Derailed”. Released on Monday, it concluded that senior managers at the Passenger Rail Agency of SA (PRASA) had wasted more than R2-billion of taxpayers’ money in the past three years.
One of the people implicated, axed Prasa group CE Lucky Montana, responded by saying all the allegations against him are false, baseless and not substantiated.
Madonsela said she was disappointed with his statements and that he would challenge the Derailed report in court. “I am disappointed that he has changed his tone because he wrote to me shortly after I released the provisional report, which he came and read in our office, and eventually took a copy.In his letter he said he was happy with the report. He had one or two things that he wished we could have handled differently. He undertook to comply with the findings and remedial actions so I am surprised.”
