JOHANNESBURG \u2014 A top corruption inspector in South Africa has announced that she will investigate two high-ranking African National Congress politicians in a case related to the abuse of public funds for a dairy farm \u2014 a rare sign that powerful members of the governing party could be held to account for endemic corruption under former President Jacob Zuma.<\/p>\n
The inspector, Public Protector Busisiwe Mkhwebane, said on Tuesday that the inquiry would focus on Ace Magashule, secretary general of the A.N.C., and Mosebenzi Joseph Zwane, the former minister of mineral resources \u2014 the two officials behind the dairy farm project in Vrede, in the province of Free State. Prosecutors describe the project, which was meant to help struggling black farmers, as a fraud that funneled $21 million to the A.N.C.\u2019s business allies.<\/p>\n
Since Mr. Zuma was ousted from power in February and replaced by Cyril Ramaphosa, the authorities have turned their attention to the dairy farm case, which has come to symbolize widespread corruption under the A.N.C. and its betrayal of poor black South Africans.<\/p>\n
The police have apprehended some low- and midlevel government officials, as well as foreign businessmen, involved in the dairy farm, the first arrests related to a high-profile case of public corruption during the Zuma years.<\/p>\n
But until now, the authorities have not focused on A.N.C. officials who were central to the corruption. Mr. Ramaphosa, who became party leader by a narrow margin in December and is dealing with deep divisions inside his party, has so far shown little appetite for going after A.N.C. figures. In fact, he named to his cabinet several people accused of corruption in the past.<\/p>\n
[Read More: How Mandela\u2019s Political Heirs Grow Rich Off Corruption.]<\/p>\n
Ms. Mkhwebane announced her decision to investigate the two A.N.C. politicians after facing harsh criticism from the Parliament\u2019s justice committee, whose lawmakers \u2014 both from the governing party and the opposition \u2014 criticized a report about the dairy farm she released in February. The report failed to look at the involvement of A.N.C. officials in the case, and it ordered the premier of the province, Mr. Magashule, to take disciplinary action against people involved in the project without addressing what role he himself may have played.<\/p>\n
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\n\u201cWe will have to investigate the public officials \u2014 what role did they play in this particular matter, and whether they are implicated or not,\u201d Ms. Mkhwebane told the local news media on Tuesday.
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\nMosebenzi Joseph Zwane, center, former minister of mineral resources, promoted a controversial dairy farm project, saying it would empower black farmers and create jobs.CreditRodger Bosch\/Agence France-Presse \u2014 Getty Images
\nThe public protector\u2019s office was established after the end of apartheid to act as a government ombudsman and to help South Africa\u2019s young and fragile democracy.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
JOHANNESBURG \u2014 A top corruption inspector in South Africa has announced that she will investigate two high-ranking African National Congress politicians in a case related to the abuse of public funds for a dairy farm \u2014 a rare sign that powerful members of the governing party could be held to account for endemic corruption under former President Jacob Zuma. The… Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":73,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1652","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-article"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/subsaharanafricablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1652","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/subsaharanafricablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/subsaharanafricablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/subsaharanafricablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/73"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/subsaharanafricablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1652"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/subsaharanafricablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1652\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1653,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/subsaharanafricablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1652\/revisions\/1653"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/subsaharanafricablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1652"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/subsaharanafricablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1652"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/subsaharanafricablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1652"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}