MPs investigating Mkhwebane stress speed and fairness

The parliamentary committee tasked with looking into public protector Busisiwe Mkhwebane’s fitness to hold office has emphasised the need to move with speed and fairness as it embarks on its inquiry which may lead to her impeachment.

The committee — which is made up of 36 members, including 19 from the ANC, four from the DA and two from the EFF — met for the first time on Tuesday and elected senior ANC MP Qubudile Dyantyi as chair.

Dyantyi said the committee will meet next week to finalise a road map and timelines.

Mkhwebane’s fate hangs in the balance after a series of devastating court findings against her, which prompted the DA to call for an inquiry into her fitness to hold office.

In March, the National Assembly voted in favour of establishing a parliamentary committee to probe this following a scathing report by an independent panel that found prima facie evidence of misconduct or incompetence by her.

“The real work of the investigation [into fitness to hold office] starts with this team. We are assembled not to rubber-stamp [the independent panel report],” said Dyantyi.

“We are assembled to apply our minds ... in doing our work we should stay focused on due process, we pursue evidence and facts in front of us, and we adhere to procedural fairness.

“We are immediately going to move with speed ... further delays are not good for the integrity of this process. It will also not be in the best interest of the office of the public protector for us to delay any further this process,” he said.

Mkhwebane will be afforded an opportunity to make submissions during the process.

DA MP and committee member Annelie Lotriet emphasised the importance of due process. “We trust this process will be done in an unbiased way and will follow due process. It is incumbent on us to note that we are acting in the best interests of the country,” she said.

Echoing Lotriet’s views, the Freedom Front Plus’s Corné Mulder said procedural fairness should be the committee’s guiding principle. “We come in this process with an open mind and will let the facts speak for themselves,” he said.

Mkhwebane’s time in office has been marked by controversy and accusations that she has involved her office in factional ANC battles, using it to defend those linked with former president Jacob Zuma. On the other hand, she was relentless in pursuing and making findings, later set aside in court, against President Cyril Ramaphosa over the campaign that won him the ANC presidency in 2017, and against public enterprises minister Pravin Gordhan over a widely discredited claim that he started a “rogue unit” at the SA Revenue Service.

In 2020, the high court in Pretoria trashed Mkhwebane’s findings against Ramaphosa, whom she had accused of lying to parliament and winning the ANC leadership race on the back of a campaign tainted by money laundering. The court declared her findings unlawful. Earlier in July, the Constitutional Court dismissed her appeal.

A panel, which was chaired by retired Constitutional Court justice Bess Nkabinde and included lawyer Dumisa Ntsebeza and academic Johan de Waal, was appointed in November 2020 after the numerous court judgments against Mkhwebane.

The panel called into question her fitness to run an agency set up to protect and promote democracy.

Should the parliamentary committee looking into her fitness for office concur with the panel’s report, the matter will be referred back to the National Assembly. At least two-thirds of MPs in the house will be required to remove her.

The public protector may be removed from office for reasons including misconduct, incapacity and incompetence. If she is removed, she will be the first head of a chapter 9 institution to be booted out of office.

The EFF and UDM voted against establishing a committee to look into the public protector’s fitness for the job. EFF deputy president Floyd Shivambu said previously that the panel had already pronounced on the guilt of the public protector and therefore it was unfair as she was not given an opportunity to respond. The whole process was unconstitutional, he said.

WE COME IN THIS PROCESS WITH AN OPEN MIND AND WILL LET THE FACTS SPEAK FOR THEMSELVES