Not my job to call Hawks on Phala Phala matter, says retired Justice Sandile Ngcobo

PHUTI MOSOMANE

RETIRED Chief Justice Sandile Ngcobo, who chaired the Section 89 panel into President Cyril Ramaphosa’s management of the Phala Phala farm saga, says it was never their job to invite or seek information from the Hawks or anyone outside of the scope given by the National Assembly.

Ngcobo was reacting to questions about their fitness to investigate the matter.

He said it was not the panel’s duty to call the Hawks for any information or assistance.

“Someone went on television and said if this panel does not call the Hawks, it would not have done its job. Let me make this quite clear and firmly. That is not our job.”

“Our job was to interrogate the information that members of the Nation Assembly saw fit to present to us, we could not go beyond that,” Ngcobo told a media briefing on Wednesday during the handover of the panel