Political analyst Ongama Mtimka says the appointment of journalist Ranjeni Munusamy to a position in the office of Finance Minister Tito Mboweni raises serious concerns about his integrity and credibility.
This follows a social media backlash over Munusamy’s appointment as part of Mboweni’s speech writing team. Some witnesses who appeared before the Commission of Inquiry into State Capture alleged that Munusamy benefited from the rampant abuse of a crime intelligence slush fund.
Mtimka says the appointment is controversial.
“So you already have two camps in the ANC blaming one another for being corrupt and captured. Now the Minister of Finance sits on the good side, attempting to clean up the ANC and the state. When he does something like this. It actually counters that message and even more when the response is bordering on arrogance.”
EFF wants Ranjeni Munusamy cut from Mboweni team
The Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) want Mboweni to sever all contractual ties with Munusamy until she deals with the allegations against her.
The EFF has given Mboweni a week in which to reverse the appointment of Munusamy to a position at National Treasury.
On Wednesday night, Mboweni tweeted a picture of the drafting team collaborating on his Medium Term Budget Policy Statement, which included Munusamy. The post garnered a lot of backlash on social media because of Munusamy’s participation.
The core MTBPS speech drafting Team meeting today, October 20, 2020. to work on how to frame the speech.This is how it works: based on the Cabinet budget fiscal framework,different teams in the National Treasury write chapters in the big document,the core team drafts the speech. pic.twitter.com/u92RuYXeNq
— Tito Mboweni (@tito_mboweni) October 20, 2020
Munusamy is a former Senior Tiso Blackstar journalist who was implicated in corruption at the Commission of Inquiry into State Capture. In September last year, former Crime Intelligence Officer Dhanajaya Naidoo and Senior Hawks investigator Kobus Roelofse implicated Munusamy in benefiting from the Crime Intelligence secret slush fund.
It’s alleged that she had her car debt of R143 000 settled by money coming from the slush fund.
Munusamy described the allegations as baseless and stated that she would like to cross-examine the witnesses that had implicated her.
Later in 2019, the Chairperson of the commission Justice Raymond Zondo granted Munusamy leave to give evidence and cross-examine.
In July, she dropped the move to cross-examine witnesses at the advice of her lawyers, who deemed that the witnesses did not have direct evidence linking her to wrongdoing. However, she said she would testify if she were asked to do so.
