{"id":10223,"date":"2026-01-07T23:43:11","date_gmt":"2026-01-07T23:43:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/10223\/"},"modified":"2026-01-07T23:43:11","modified_gmt":"2026-01-07T23:43:11","slug":"ramaphosa-defends-appointing-andy-mothibi-to-head-npa-amid-widespread-pushback","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/10223\/","title":{"rendered":"Ramaphosa defends appointing Andy Mothibi to head NPA amid widespread pushback"},"content":{"rendered":"

President Cyril Ramaphosa has defended the appointment of Andy Mothibi <\/a>as head of the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA), despite him not being among the candidates interviewed for the position.<\/p>\n

Six candidates were interviewed by an advisory panel appointed by the president to identify the most suitable person for the role. <\/p>\n

However, the panel advised that none of the candidates met the required standard, prompting Ramaphosa to appoint Mothibi<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Mothibi, who currently heads the Special Investigating Unit (SIU), is set to assume his role as the National Director of Public Prosecutions (NDPP) next month.<\/p>\n

Ramaphosa spoke about the changing NPA leadership on the sidelines of the African National Congress (ANC)\u2019s birthday celebrations in the North West on Wednesday.<\/p>\n

ALSO READ: Parliament’s justice committee welcomes Mothibi’s appointment as new NPA boss<\/a><\/p>\n

Some opposition parties, including the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF), have criticised the manner in which Mothibi was appointed as the NDPP.<\/p>\n

The EFF has questioned why Mothibi was chosen despite not being among the interviewed candidates.<\/p>\n

The party said this raises concerns about what it calls the executive\u2019s dictatorship, saying the purpose of the public interviews was to ensure transparency.<\/p>\n

But Ramaphosa said when the advisory panel informed him that none of the candidates were suitable, he decided to exercise his constitutional prerogative in making the appointment.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn future, we would want the law or the Constitution to be amended to allow a more open process. We don\u2019t have it now and it was instituted at my volition. When it didn\u2019t yield the results that I expected, I had to rely on what the Constitution empowers me to do.”<\/p>\n

While the EFF is unhappy with the way Mothibi was given the job, it has not necessarily objected to his appointment.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"President Cyril Ramaphosa has defended the appointment of Andy Mothibi as head of the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA),…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":10224,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[52],"tags":[397,398,403,400,399,401,96,402,406,405,404,131],"class_list":{"0":"post-10223","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-south-africa","8":"tag-ewn","9":"tag-ewn-news","10":"tag-ewn-south-africa","11":"tag-eye-witness-news","12":"tag-eyewitness-news","13":"tag-latest-news","14":"tag-news","15":"tag-news-today","16":"tag-prime-media-plus","17":"tag-primedia-plus","18":"tag-primedia","19":"tag-south-africa"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10223","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10223"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10223\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10224"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10223"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10223"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10223"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}