Investigating Directorate Against Corruption (IDAC) head Advocate Andrea Johnson has asked to be released from office within 24 hours, waiving the three-month notice period contained in her contract.
Johnson, a career prosecutor with three decades of service, made the request in a letter to National Director of Public Prosecutions Shamila Batohi, which was also copied to President Cyril Ramaphosa.
Her dramatic bid to leave office follows a turbulent week at the Madlanga Commission, where she faced intense scrutiny over IDAC’s investigations and prosecutions involving senior Crime Intelligence officials.
NPA spokesperson Kaizer Kganyago confirmed to IOL that the letter had been received.
“The NDPP has received the letter and he is processing it,” Kganyago said.
Johnson’s request comes hot on the heels of her evidence at the Madlanga Commission this week.
In her letter, she tied her decision directly to the fallout from IDAC’s cases against Crime Intelligence officials.
“The recent five months or so have been challenging and the attacks on both my person and official capacity have been unprecedented,” she said.
“Much of the attacks revolve and arise out of the cases IDAC has conducted against officials of Crime Intelligence.”
She said the attacks had brought negative attention not only to her, but to IDAC and the NPA.
“I have given thirty years of service to an organisation I love dearly. I cannot be the reason that there is so much negative attention and reputational risk to IDAC and the NPA,” she said.
Johnson said the allegations against her still had to be proven, but that testing them would require another commission, which the country could not afford.
She said she had already applied for retirement, being 55 and turning 56 next month, but had come to believe the retirement could be challenged, and did not want to draw the offices of the president or the NDPP into a court battle.
“I have been honoured to have served and want to ensure that I am able to exit with as minimal disruption as possible,” she said.
Johnson has had a decorated legal career.
In 2004 she was appointed a deputy director of public prosecutions at the Directorate of Special Operations, the Scorpions, where she served until the unit was disbanded in 2009.
In 2022 she succeeded advocate Hermione Cronje as head of the Investigating Directorate, which was later given permanence and renamed IDAC.
She was also a contender for the position of national director of public prosecutions.
Her exit follows a bruising stretch at the Madlanga Commission.
IDAC led the arrest of Crime Intelligence head Lieutenant-General Dumisani Khumalo and other officers in June 2025, alleging that brigadier Dineo Mokwele had been unlawfully appointed to lead the division’s technical support services.
Johnson has maintained the investigation was driven by evidence and not politics.
Some police officers have suggested the arrests were part of a plot to derail other investigations and protect suspects.
Under cross-examination this week, Johnson made a series of concessions.
She withdrew and apologised for describing Mokwele’s appointment as a “token” one, and acknowledged that parts of her earlier evidence to Parliament’s ad hoc committee had been incorrect.
She has also faced allegations that she leaked details of a criminal complaint to senior Crime Intelligence officer Major-General Feroz Khan, and told the commission she had maintained contact with Khan outside work before distancing herself from him.
Khan survived what police described as an attempted assassination days before he was due to testify.
Johnson has denied wrongdoing.
The allegations against Johnson remain unproven.
