Stals says public protector misquoted him in Absa report
'I made it very clear to her in my interview that there [is] no way the Bank can claim anything from Absa'
The public protector’s draft report on the South African Reserve Bank’s lifeboat to Bankorp hit serious credibility issues on Tuesday, as former Bank governor Chris Stals said that claims attributed to him in the report were wrong. The office of the public protector also confirmed it had sent out the provisional report in error. One of the key findings of the report, which was initially researched by Thuli Madonsela and completed by her successor Busi Mkhwebane, was that evidence presented by Stals suggested the Bank had an agreement with Absa to repay both the capital amount and the interest, on which it later reneged, repaying only the capital amount. It is this finding that led Mkhwebane to recommend that the Bank and the Treasury pursue Absa for the outstanding interest of R1.225bn, plus interest accrued since then.Stals said that the finding, drawn from his interview with Madonsela, was either willfully incorrect or showed a lack of understanding of how the lifeboat worked. "I ...
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