Juanita du Preez: Mkhwanazi stands strong as the nervous scramble for cover...

Whistleblowing Lieutenant-General Nhlanhla Mkhwanazi continues dropping bombs, this time at Parliament’s Ad Hoc Committee - following his explosive testimony before the Madlanga Commission. In this BizNews interview, Action Society’s Juanita Du Preez tells Chris Steyn that the general comes across as “believable and credible” and is staying “cool and calm”. In contrast, former allies of President Cyril Ramaphosa are turning on another with SG Fikile Mbabula brutally dumping CR17 campaign organiser Brian Mogotsi who retaliated with allegations that caused the SG to threaten to sue him for defamation. More skeletons are also tumbling out of the closet of former Police Minister Nathi Mthethwa who died from a hotel room fall in Paris after being fingered by General Mkhwanazi. “…everybody is running around and covering their backs because...they might not know when what is going to come out…A lot of people are very nervous.” She also slams Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) leader Julius Malema - fresh from his criminal conviction for firearm offences - for delaying the committee hearing by hours..Sign up for your early morning brew of the BizNews Insider to keep you up to speed with the content that matters. The newsletter will land in your inbox at 5:30am weekdays. Register here.Support South Africa’s bastion of independent journalism, offering balanced insights on investments, business, and the political economy, by joining BizNews Premium. Register here.If you prefer WhatsApp for updates, sign up to the BizNews channel here..Watch here.Listen here.Edited transcript of the interview.Chris Steyn (00:01.918)Judging by social media, if South Africans had to vote for a new president today, it would be a police general. I speak to Action Society’s Juanita Du Preez. Welcome, Yonita. Juanita Du Preez (00:16.551)hi. Thank you for the opportunity. Chris Steyn (00:21.5)Are you following the comments on X? The praise being heaped on the KZN Provincial Commissioner. Juanita Du Preez (00:26.094)I try to stay off X because sometimes it's so toxic, but you can't miss it. But this is from the time when he spilled the beans the first time in July. It's just been people have been praising him. They want him to be the king and ruler of South Africa. Again, we have to be careful. And I wonder why that is in South Africa. I think it is because we are disappointed so many times by the people that are in the positions that as soon as there's somebody who looks like he is above board or she is above board, then we jump on them. The same thing happened with Ian Cameron when he had the whole yelling thing with Cele. So I don't know if I put all... I don't want to make a messiah out of somebody. You can't run a business as one person. He's not going to fix all the problems in South Africa. It's good that he's speaking up and he's bringing the evidence and everything and he seems believable, but he's not the start and finish of problems in South Africa. Chris Steyn (01:53.086)I think - if you would agree - that South Africans are so impressed with him because he stands up to politicians, crime bosses, journalists; there's no one you won't take on. Juanita Du Preez (02:05.836)Yes and that's great and we want to see people like that but we want to see the right people not the people who are making a circus of everything. It's good to stand up when something is wrong and it should be happening. We welcome that but yeah not when you are on the right side and I think, I hope most people know what the right side is, because it does seem split a little bit to what I think is right and most people that I speak to think is right and what other people think is right, because we just see people in it for themselves to be in the centre stage. Chris Steyn (02:57.598)How are you rating his handling of Parliament's Ad Hoc Committee? Juanita Du Preez (03:03.04)I think he's just doing the same he's been doing. He stays cool and calm. He knows what he wants to say. He knows what his objective is with this whole process and he's going to stick to that. I'm sure he's going to stay that cool, calm person until the end. So. Yeah, he seems very believable. We sit in court cases a lot and you always hear this witness was believable and credible. And if we were in a court, it is definitely what we would be reporting, that he is credible and believable. Chris Steyn (03:44.104)And he has quite calmly made it clear that he sits on a lot of evidence that he would be willing to bring if he had to. Juanita Du Preez (03:50.702)Yes, I wonder if we are going to see everything that he knows, because I know that EFF and MK was making big in the commission, they were making a big thing about some of it being redacted and so on, which is fair. I think that's fair. What is redacted? If it's going to be open and transparent, then don't redact anything. So I think he, the stuff, I want to know what is he not going to bring and why is he not going to bring that? But yeah, I do hope we see a lot of evidence and that there is action after all of the evidence. Chris Steyn (04:38.91)Hmm. That might be, the redaction might be because it deals with ongoing police investigations that can't be jeopardised at this point. Possibly. I don't know what you think. Juanita Du Preez (04:46.894)Yes, but then they have to handle it better. We know MK and EFF, they are well known for making a big show of everything and disrupting stuff just because like toddlers, they don't get what they want, so they make a big tantrum about it. But if it is, if that is the case, then yes, then you say we cannot make public this information. For this part, we will speak behind doors and just give an explanation why it is and why it is handled in that way so that everybody knows because now it feels, okay, they're saying it's redacted. Why is it? It creates uncertainty for the rest of South Africa. We don't know why it is redacted. Just give us enough information so that we understand, okay, we don't want to mention where we're gonna do a crime bust, obviously, to scare away the criminals, to put it that simple. But just explain to us why you are redacting certain things and why you're not giving all the information. Then we'll be satisfied. Chris Steyn (06:03.444)Now only two of the Big Five have been named and it now seems that the other three are all tenderpreneurs. So you can imagine how much those people stand to lose. Juanita Du Preez (06:14.38)Yeah, I was thinking the Afrikaans saying is die Poppe dans. Everything, everybody is like running around and covering their backs because I think they might not know when what is going to come out. So you don't know where exactly to cover. There's a lot of ground to cover, a lot of things to make go away, to… push on somebody else, there's a lot of information out there. A lot of people very nervous. Chris Steyn (06:51.668)You even have President Cyril Ramaphosa's allies turning on one another: Brian Mogotsi, who allegedly got dirty money to fund ANC events and candidates being dumped by the African National Congress like the proverbial hot potato. And now Juanita Du Preez (07:06.504)No. Yeah, no. Juanita Du Preez (07:14.542)That's what I just wanted to say. Now he was at all the events and everything. He was there. There's photos, there's videos of it. But now, oh, no, he's not even a member of the Northwest ANC. His membership expired in 2020. And on a public stage, Mbalula saying, no, no, we're not connected to him in any way. But that's just another thing. He was he was welcome at the events, but now he's not. Washing your hands clean of him, dropping him like a hot potato. But where was that? Where was that hand washing and he's not involved with us when everything was happening? Chris Steyn (07:54.398)So Mogotsi turns on Mbalula and starts making wild accusations. Mbalula threatens legal action for defamation. I wonder how many more, how many, the more emerges, the more I would imagine people are going to turn on one another to try and save themselves. Juanita Du Preez (08:03.084)They're just slinging mud. Juanita Du Preez (08:15.212)Definitely. You have to cover yourself, if you're in those circles. Otherwise, you might be shoved out of a hotel room in France. It is that serious. There are people standing to lose a lot in this ongoing thing. Yeah, everybody is going to turn on everybody because it's criminals working with each other. There's no honuor among thieves. Everybody's covering their own backs. That's how it works. And you just have to understand that if this is the situation, the environment that you roll in, then that is what's going to happen to you. You're there for yourself. You have to cover yourself. Nobody's going to cover for the guy next to me..Read more:.Juanita du Preez: Officers in Uniform v/s Ministers in Suits… death, illness, threats.Chris Steyn (09:04.861)Not just criminals turning on one another because of their links to politicians and top cops. It makes it far more complicated. Juanita Du Preez (09:14.668)Yeah, it is very complicated. But if you were part of the cookie eater, then you were also a thief. My mother taught me that the dealer is a good … stealer. So if you share in the profits and the benefits of stealing the cookie, then you are also a thief. Chris Steyn (09:40.274)Just going back to that hotel room in Paris where the former Police Minister fell from, it now seems that there are more skeletons in his cupboard than we had previously suspected. Juanita Du Preez (09:46.412)Naughty. Juanita Du Preez (09:53.91)And I think more skeletons are going to come out. I was just sorry to jump off this point, but I was flabbergasted when I heard they are sending five really experienced police officers high up to investigate, to help another country investigate a murder that happened in their country. I don't think we are the pinnacle of police at the moment. I don't think they need our help. I think they maybe stay away. Then we know it's going to be objective. While that was happening, I was thinking, and just maybe because I've been in this mindset this week, is a high profile cases and how much attention it gets immediately. Why can an ambassador and ex-minister who's implicated in things. Why must we have five people jumping on a plane and investigating his case? What happened to him? What is happening to … where I was on Monday to her case two and a half years later? And that is just one of the cases. All the…. cases. No action, nothing happens. It is so unfair and it sickens me that this guy gets this much attention. That is not how it should be. Why is somebody's life worth more than the other person's life? It's a lie. Chris Steyn (11:30.004)I see some people suggesting that they're not there to investigate; they're there to clean up. Juanita Du Preez (11:36.622)That's what I was thinking. Chris Steyn (11:39.546)That maybe they have to take possession of incriminating material and retrieve it. Anyway. Juanita Du Preez (11:45.998)Yeah, I think that could very much be the case. Chris Steyn (11:51.412)Talking about disruptive behavior by the EFF, what did you make of its leader, Julius Malema’s standing on ceremony at the Ad Hoc committee fresh from his own criminal conviction? Juanita Du Preez (12:05.176)Did we expect anything else? It is Julius Malema. The circus is in town again. The things are on the one hand, they are complaining about things that is valid, like the reduction, like Diane Kohler-Barnard. There are some valid points that should be looked at. But the way making a theater, a spectacle, a circus of everything. It's just the same as when we do the budget speech, when we do the State of the Nation. Nobody gets a word in edgeways. It is just about the Julius Malema EFF show. And the thing that they are complaining about, the delays. Now they are causing the delays. Why do you not understand? And the thing that the big thing that they were complaining about is about Mkhwanazi's statement, that it was just an additional or supporting statement. But it says the same thing. They just changed the wording. It's still the same thing. You wasted six hours just to prove your point, to make it your show. And I think what they are hammering on is that they are the only ones who are not corrupt…. Juanita Du Preez (13:26.986)in this story and this is what they're trying to do with their little circus. Remember there's election coming up so they have to start showing people, we really care about the people, we are doing this for you. They want to prepare for an election and they always want to be centre of the spectacle that is ongoing, wasting time. There's a proper way that you could have brought all those statements saying we don't agree with this, please sort this out, speak like a normal person with manners and it's over. Not six hours later. It's, I get so angry. Chris Steyn (14:11.122)Well, if some people have their way, Mr. Malema will not be in Parliament forever. Let's see what happens with his appeals for his criminal conviction and that Equality Court hearing. Meanwhile, MPs are squirming now that they know that the Crime Intelligence has gadgets to listen to all their conversations. Juanita Du Preez (14:33.806)Yeah, a lot of people should be worried. But, or I mean, because they have not stepped in the right steps. But if you are above board, if you do your work as you should, then you should not be worried; there is no worry for you. And if we can have integrity and people that we can look up to and believe and trust, then they shouldn't be worried about conversations being listened to. It is a problem when it is confidential and it impacts cases that's ongoing, that should not be out there because we see how compromised it is throughout this whole, everybody knows what's going on in all the business, in all the departments. Yeah, then it is concerning. If you are doing the stuff that you… need to do your aboveboard then you shouldn't be worried then then no worry for you but, but who is squirming now… Chris Steyn (15:42.814)You know, decades, there have been decades of cover-ups in the previous government, this government, politicians being protected despite having committed heinous crimes. Do you think we are finally reaching a turning point in South Africa? Juanita Du Preez (16:01.502)I think people are very frustrated and they are very vocal about their frustration. Maybe in the previous government it was more one-sided, the covering, and it was more one-sided, the complaints about it. But now it feels like it's complaints from all sides and it is wrongdoing from all sides. So maybe it's a more balanced outcry and turning point than what we had previously. I really do hope that it is a turning point, that things are going to start happening and get us on the right track to move forward. I really do hope so. But again, what's happened in other commissions? What's happened in other...places where we expected a change. It didn't happen. I don't want to put my money on that, but I do hope that this is a turning point. Chris Steyn (17:07.806)Thank you. That was Juanita du Preez of Action Society speaking to BizNews. I'm Chris Steyn. Juanita Du Preez (17:14.658)Thank you.

Juanita du Preez: Mkhwanazi stands strong as the nervous scramble for cover...

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