Investigative journalism outfit amaBhungane, a non-profit organisation funded by the Mail & Guardian, has released a massive cache of 12 000 pieces of paperwork relating to the state-funded building works at President Jacob’s private residence, Nkandla. The document dump, which has been released using Dropbox, comes on the same day that public prosecutor Thuli Madonsela has filed papers with the courts demanding that her official report into the Nkandla affair be made public without government meddling.
Madonsela’s report has been held back by the security cluster, which argues that it should be heavily redacted before release.
The Wikileaks-style data dump is one of the biggest in South African history, made possible thanks to the Promotion of Access to Information Act and a team of lawyers. Writing on the M&G, amaBhungane representatives describe the process of getting hold of the documents as “protracted”.
Releasing them to the public is a brave move that should be applauded too. Traditionally, newspapers would keep this sort of hard won trove to themselves, mine it for some stories then release it to the archivists. Thanks to amaBhungane’s action, other activists and researchers can download the complete set of files from here. As with major releases during Wikileaks’ timespan, there are bound to be details that journalists overlook but may be found by keen eyed observers with an interest in who funded what and where.
From the M&G announcement of the release:
Vinayak Bhardwaj, the centre’s advocacy co-ordinator, said: “The release of the entire cache of documents is motivated by the crucial need for transparency. This is particularly so when the same security-related arguments that originally subverted our access-to-information request now appear to filibuster publication of the public protector’s findings. The public has a right to know.”
According to the paper, officials initially resisted the release of the documents because of security concerns, which the M&Gs lawyers were able to prove were unfounded.
Most of the files in the cache we’ve seen so far relate to bills paid for services and goods. If you’re going to grab the whole lot as a ZIP file be warned – it’s half a gigabyte of PDFs. Careful as you go with your bandwidth caps.
