Public protector defends meeting
Public Protector Busisiwe Mkhwebane has defended her decision to meet the Presidency’s legal advisers ahead of releasing her contentious report in which she instructed Parliament to alter the Reserve Bank’s mandate.
Public Protector Busisiwe Mkhwebane has defended her decision to meet the Presidency’s legal advisers before releasing her contentious report in which she instructed Parliament to change the Reserve Bank’s mandate from protecting the value of the currency to focusing on the “socioeconomic wellbeing of the citizens”.
The report on the apartheidera bail-out of Bankorp, its subsequent purchase by Absa and the Ciex investigation into it, has been challenged by the Reserve Bank, Finance Minister Malusi Gigaba and Absa. Mkhwebane has since conceded that the remedial action on changing the Bank’s mandate should be set aside.
The entire report is the subject of a judicial review.
The public protector and her team appeared before Parliament’s justice portfolio committee on Thursday to discuss her office’s report for the 2016-17 financial year.
Opposition MPs questioned Mkhwebane on her decision to call for the Reserve Bank’s mandate to be changed and the rationale for meeting the Presidency before the release of the report.
In September, the Reserve Bank filed an affidavit in the High Court in Pretoria in which it alleged that Mkhwebane had colluded with the Presidency to attack the central bank and to change its constitutional mandate two weeks before she released the report. The meeting had previously not been disclosed, the Bank said.
Mkhwebane told MPs that she had met the representatives from the Presidency because the report had suggested that President Jacob Zuma should consider setting up a commission of inquiry into whether outstanding money was due from other institutions mentioned in the Ciex report.
Mkhwebane’s report recommended that Absa pay back more than R1bn for an “unlawful” apartheid-era bail-out.
The auditor-general raised concern in the public protector’s annual report about whether the office could continue to operate as a going concern.
While the office, which was allocated about R275m for the year under review, received an unqualified audit opinion, it is technically insolvent. Its liabilities exceed assets by more than R28.6m, up from about R15m in the 2015-16 financial year.
The office of the public protector, which says it has embarked on cost-cutting initiatives, has requested additional funding of about R885m for the next three years.