The appointment of axed attorney Ramesh Vassen - struck off the rolls in 1996 for misuse of a trust's fund money - as consul-general to India may have raised the hackles of Opposition parties, but the government is standing by him. Foreign affairs minister Alfred Nzo claims Vassen deserves a second chance as he has repaid the trust money he misused. Even Nelson Mandela's office says the president ratified the appointment, after a departmental probe.
But Democratic Party spokesman Douglas Gibson, who brought the botch-up to light, slammed foreign affairs mandarins: 'They have seriously embarrassed the president. How could they not know of Vassen's background when it was public knowledge?'
At the heart of the controversy is a Cape high court order of 1996 that found Vassenóa 'struggle lawyer', who fought human rights cases under apartheid, and former law partner of justice minister Dullah Omar - guilty of the theft of trust monies, including Rand 61763,55 from the estate of a dead man. Gibson says the failure of the foreign office to inform Mandela was either a 'cover-up' of a 'struggle' lawyer's wrongdoing, or evidence of 'rank incompetence'.
Nzo, however, squashes speculation that the department had appointed Vassen - a deputy director - without investigating his background. He claims the department knew Vassen had been struck off the attorney's rolls: 'We make no apology for that. We believe he has been appropriately punished and that he deserves a second chance.' According to Nzo, Vassen 'indeed used money from trust funds, [but] clearly marked it as a loan in his books and has paid the amount back in full, with interest.'
Nzo says Vassen was recruited in the usual way to work for the department. Soon after, he was assigned as a director at the parliamentary office in Cape Town. He worked with all the political parties in Parliament, and had a good relationship with them. 'I am in possession of letters from these parties commending him for his services,' says Nzo. 'It is ironic and politically opportunistic for the Democratic Party to make a hue and cry about his appointment at this particular time, on the eve of the elections.'
As a director with a 'good' track record, Vassen had legitimate claims to an overseas appointment. 'He will take up his post this week,' says Nzo. India's deputy high commissioner in Pretoria, P.S. Raghavan, was cryptic: 'We have - and can have - no comment on the matter.' He ruled out any objection from the Indian government, saying it was very rare for a receiving country to object to the appointment of a diplomat, and then only if it was a head of mission, not any other envoy.
Gibson equates the appointment of Vassen with that of discredited ex-Independent Broadcasting Authority (iba) councillor Lundall Shope-Mafole to South Africa's foreign service in France. 'It seems the foreign service is becoming a dumping ground for dishonest African National Congress pals.' The surreptitious appointment of Shope-Mafole was another example of the appointment of well-connected people to positions in foreign service, he alleges.
'Like Vassen, she has been implicated in a corruption scandal,' he claims. Gibson was referring to her resignation from the iba after the auditor-general released a damning report on credit card abuse by its councillors, who owe the state about Rand 241,722. Gibson says the only credentials that Vassen and Shope-Mafole had was their connection to senior anc politicians.
Shope-Mafole's mother is Gertrude Shope, anc MP and ex-president of the anc's Women's League, and widow of Tebogo Mafole, senior advisor in the office of deputy president Thabo Mbeki.'It is symptomatic of the jobs-for-pals tendency, that the government is unable to act firmly when these appointees are implicated in corrupt deals,' says Gibson.
Besides Shope-Mafole, there have been other 'dubious' decisions, especially affecting 'struggle' lawyers: Kwenza Mlaba, struck from the roll in April 1998 in connection with the theft of Rand 800,000 from a paralysed client, was offered a post in the home affairs ministry in November; and Vivani Made was struck from the rolls last year for dishonesty in relation to his private practice after he joined government service as deputy state attorney. He was fired only after he was exposed by his colleagues.
The Sunday Times claims Vassen got the job after he approached Aziz Pahad, deputy minister of foreign affairs, for a job six months after investigations into his misappropriation of trust funds began. Gibson has sought Pahad's resignation if he had known about the lawyer's past. An unruffled Vassen, who is of Indian origin, feels that the controversy would not in any way affect his work in India.
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