Billions: The Dismantling Of The Prasa Investigation.

GALLO IMAGES Then chairperson of the Prasa board,
Popo Molefe, addresses the media about the
findings of the Public Protector on September 3, 2015 in Pretoria.

Whenever investigations into corruption seems to get too close to President Jacob Zuma and his associates, it gets short shrift.

ANALYSIS

By the time a special board meeting of the embattled Passenger Rail Agency of South Africa (Prasa) ended on the afternoon of Friday February 24, Collins Letsoalo was livid.

Minister of Transport Dipuo Peters had ordered him to hold the fort as acting chief executive at Prasa until a suitable and permanent appointment could be made and to "ensure that the board adheres to good corporate governance".

But his efforts had been thwarted.

The board never wanted Letsoalo as acting chief executive, they wouldn't answer to him — that's not how corporate governance works despite what Letsoalo thought — and they weren't about to be hobbled by Peters or Letsoalo's insistence that a forensic investigation into grand corruption and large-scale looting be curtailed and ended.

At the board meeting board chair Popo Molefe insisted on two things that Letsoalo vehemently opposed: firstly, that the investigation, conducted by the law firm Werksmans, continue as scheduled and, secondly, that legal action be taken against the Hawks policing unit, which had neglected to act on any of the 39 complaints made to it in terms of anti-corruption law.

Letsoalo, in an affidavit, says he "disagreed" with the Werksmans payments, but, more tellingly, differed with Molefe on his approach to the Hawks.

By Pieter du Toit.

Full story at The Huffington Post SA.