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Polity
Published: 23 Jan 2004
I won't quit - Ngcuka
National Director of Public Prosecutions Bulelani Ngcuka has assured the nation that he will not quit his job. "Indeed, I have considered my position and my future...I have decided that there are lots of knots I still have to untie as South Africa's head of prosecutions," he told reporters in Johannesburg yesterday.

"Despite personal suffering and peril, I am now more determined than ever to carry on with my job. It cannot be in South Africa's interest for me to give up the fight," he said confirming earlier reports that he previously had considered quitting the top job. Speaking to the media for the first time since retired Judge Joos Hefer cleared him of allegations of being an apartheid agent, Ngcuka said he had put the allegations behind him and now wanted to focus on the ongoing battle against criminals, which he needed to lead. "There is a bigger battle to be fought and won in courts. That is the battle against crime...it's a battle I am determined to help win for South Africa," he said. "Ngcuka probably never acted as an agent of a pre-1994 government security force," retired Judge Joos Hefer, who chaired the Hefer Commission that looked into allegations that Ngcuka was an apartheid spy and as a result abused his authority, concluded in a report released in Pretoria, on Tuesday. Judge Hefer said allegations by Ngcuka's main accusers, former transport minister Mac Maharaj and foreign affairs special adviser Mo Shaik were "ill-conceived and entirely unsubstantiated." "I have accordingly come to the conclusion that he probably never at anytime before 1994 acted as an agent of the state security service," said Judge Hefer, in the 62-page report.

"The suspicion which a small number of distrustful individuals harboured against him 14 years ago was the result of ill-founded inferences and groundless assumptions," he said.

Ngcuka, who addressed his staff and colleagues this morning, welcomed the findings and its criticism of leaks from the Scorpions and promised to correct that.

"We shall ensure that any employee who flouts the relevant rules and regulations is severely dealt with, in accordance with the law," he affirmed. – BuaNews.