Cape Town – The Committee for Section 194 Enquiry into Public Protector Advocate Busisiwe Mkhwebane’s fitness to hold office on Friday resolved to recommend her removal from the post.
The committee said it will recommend Advocate Mkhwebane’s removal to the National Assembly “based on conclusive evidence on the charges of incompetence and misconduct”.
“Following the adoption of a draft report, Advocate Mkhwebane will now be given a final opportunity to respond in writing to the draft report by 21 August 2023 for the committee’s further consideration,” the committee said, signally the end of the tumultuous inquiry that dragged on for months.
“The committee will thereafter adopt a final report for tabling in the National Assembly.”
If Parliament accepts the committee’s recommendations to remove Advocate Mkhwebane as public protector, she will likely lose the R10 million gratuity she was due to receive at the end of her term.
Advocate Mkhwebane’s term was supposed to end in a couple of months and the process to replace her has already begun.
Advocate Mkhwebane was suspended by President Cyril Ramphosa in June last year.
On Friday, Committee Chairperson Qubudile Dyantyi said at the start of the meeting that the committee received correspondence that Advocate Mkhwebane’s most recent attorneys, Chaane Attorneys, had withdrawn as her attorneys of record without having briefed her senior counsel since their appointment.
This was Advocate Mkhwebane’s second attorney of record to withdraw.
The majority of members who participated in the meeting were in favour of removing Advocate Mkhwebane and stated that the decision was based on the overwhelming and conclusive evidence placed before it.
Two political parties, the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) and Al Jama’ah, voted against the recommendation of removal.
The EFF, which did not object to any of the committee’s findings during deliberations, complained about the fairness of the process and said it intends to take the report on review.
The committee took exception to being accused by certain members of coming into the process with a predetermined view and following a party line instead of basing decisions on evidence.
Those members in favour of sacking Advocate Mkhwebane insisted they approached the inquiry process without any preconceived decisions about the outcome.
Dyantyi said in instances where the committee did not have evidence against Advocate Mkhwebane or was not convinced by the evidence placed before it, she was exonerated.
“This clearly speaks of a fair process, a process that members entered into without any preconceived idea of an outcome,” Dyantyi said.
Advocate Mkhwebane has complained about the lack of fairness regarding legal representation and alleged bias of the committee chairperson Dyantyi whom she requested to recuse himself.
More recently Advocate Mkhwebane accused Dyantyi of soliciting a bribe to make her matter go away.
Earlier this year in June, Mkhwebane released recordings of a conversation supposedly between her husband, Mandla Skosana, and the now late Tina Joemat-Pettersson, in which the African National Congress (ANC) Member of Parliament allegedly solicited a bribe on behalf of Dyantyi and ANC Chief Whip Pemmy Majodina.
Both Dyantyi and Majodina have rejected the allegations as false.
