PROF Kader Asmal, a former chairman of the Irish Anti Apartheid Movement and a trusted confidant of the ANC leader, President Nelson Mandela, has come in for flak in the South African press recently.
The criticism relates to Prof Asmal's role in defending the ANC on what an article in Business Day calls "two tricky moral issues".
In the first issue, the Health Minister, Dr Nkosazana Zuma, is at the centre of a controversy relating to an anti AIDS play, Sarafina 11, which her department promoted. In the second, the Deputy Environmental Affairs Minister, Gen Bantu Holomisa, is a pivotal figure.
The criticisms levelled at Dr Zuma by opposition parties are twofold first, that she used EU funds to finance the play at a cost to EU taxpayers of 14.2 million rand (£2.18 million) without the EU's knowledge or approval and second, that she misled a parliamentary committee in February when she told them the EU was aware its money had been used.
Gen Holomisa who was the military ruler of Transkei when it was dissolved and reincorporated in South Africa in April 1994 is under attack within his own party the ANC, for recalling in evidence to the Truth Commission that a cabinet colleague, the Public Enterprise Minister, Ms Stella Sigcau, accepted a "gift" of 50,000 rand (£7,668) in 1988 from the then Prime Minister of Transkei, Chief George Matanzima.
Prof Asmal, who has a reputation for moral integrity and who is known as the ANC's "Mr Clean", has rejected calls for Dr Zuma's resignation. Referring to an investigation into the Sarafina II affair by the Public Protector or Ombudsman, he said. "The Minister emerges . . . without blemish."
Referring to Prof Asmal's conclusion, Business Day states that the budget for the play expanded nearly threefold from five million rand (£766.871) to more than 14 million rand (about £2.15 million) without intervention from Dr Zuma.
The report ends. "If that is not negligence or dereliction of duty, it is difficult to know what is."
On the controversy surrounding Gen Holomisa, Prof Asmal has defended the view expressed by the Deputy President, Mr Thabo Mbeki, that Gen Holomisa should have discussed his evidence to the Truth Commission with the ANC.
He has told journalists that as a loyal member of the ANC, he would share his testimony with the party.
A South African Sunday Times article comments. "The ANC has created a precedent which the National Party will no doubt gleefully seize that political parties should vet testimony by their members . .. All that the Truth Commission may now prove is that different political parties see the past differently."
The article is headed. "For the greater good of the party".
Under the heading, "When the good men come to the aid of the party," Business Day describes Prof Asmal as the "ANC's most erudite member" and praises his "wit and lucidity".
Reflecting on his role in the Zuma and Holomisa affairs, it says. "To see him slowly turning into another party back is like watching an oak tree fall."
. The South African Deputy President, Mr F.W. de Klerk (60), who repudiated his country's racial laws and opted for democracy in 1990, attended his last cabinet meeting yesterday.
On July 1st, Mr De Klerk leaves President Nelson Mandela and the ANC alone with Chief Mangosuthu Buthelezi's Zulu based Inkatha Freedom Party in South Africa's first largely black government.