The public protector’s website has collapsed under a heavy load of traffic as South Africans attempt to access the site in the wake of a court judgment that a report into “state capture” must be released.
The high court in Pretoria said that Thuli Madonsela’s report, publication of which was halted after President Jacob Zuma sought to postpone its release, must be made public by no later than 5pm on Wednesday.
Zuma earlier on Wednesday, through his lawyers, abandoned the attempt to stop the report’s release.
Shortly after the court’s decision, multiple attempts to access the public protector’s website – www.pprotect.org – from several networks proved unsuccessful. A “traceroute” to the website was met with “request timed out” errors. “Ping” requests also timed out.
The website isitdownrightnow.com reported that the website was down for everyone.
Domain name system (DNS) records show that pprotect.org was registered by MTN, but little other information could be gleaned given that the website is unreachable.
The public protector’s office has since said via its Twitter account that its official website is now publicprotector.org, not pprotect.org. However, the new website was inaccessible at the time of writing, returning the error that its DNS address could not be found.
“We will make an announcement once the report is live,” the tweet said.
Publication of the public protector’s report — the last report prepared under the watch of Thuli Madonsela before she stepped down at the end of a seven-year term last month — is seen as a significant setback for Zuma, whose close relationship with the Gupta family has led to allegations that the state has been captured. Among other things, the Guptas are accused of having wielded influence in the appointment of cabinet ministers.
The president has faced growing calls in recent days to resign. The calls have come from opposition parties, trade unions, civil society movements and even stalwarts of the ANC, which Zuma leads. — © 2016 NewsCentral Media
