Committee reaffirms decision to subpoena Thuli Madonsela
THE Section 194 committee probing the fitness of Public Protector Busiswe Mkhwebane to hold office has reaffirmed its decision to subpoena former public protector Thuli Madonsela.
This, after Madonsela wrote to Mkhwebane’s legal team and copied the committee, declining to appear voluntarily before the committee.
Last week, the inquiry decided to subpoena Madonsela, former deputy public protector Kevin Malunga, and public protector investigators Rodney Mataboge and Bianca Mvunyana. At the time Madonsela had not responded to the request by her successor.
Mkhwebane wants Madonsela to testify on the vetting of staff by the State Security Agency, donor funding, outsourcing of investigations, the impact of the Nkandla judgment on litigation, reasons for not completing key investigations, consequence management and the impact of inadequate resource allocation.
Yesterday, committee chairperson Qubudile Dyantyi said correspondence had since been sent by Madonsela. In her letter, Madonsela said she did not see the rational connection of the majority of the questions and the Section 194 inquiry, which stemmed from judgments regarding Mkhwebane’s integrity flowing from court decisions about her honesty and professional competence. “The information you seek is with the public protector as an institution,” Madonsela wrote.
She also said she would have been in a position to help a week after leaving office, had her efforts to work with applicable public protector team members to finalise a quality assured set of records on December 14, 2016, not been rebuffed by Mkhwebane.
She advised that administrative information about staffing, vetting and institutional relations could be found from the institution’s records and staff members who had been there since the establishment of the office, including former CEOs.
Madonsela also said in preparing her statement in the event she was subpoenaed, that she would require an independent legal service provider procured by the institution and to work with the entity to find the relevant records.
Parliamentary legal advisor Fatima Ebrahim told the committee that the evidence leaders had attempted to meet Madonsela and were told she did not take records when she left office and did not have email correspondence.
After some discussion, Dyantyi said: “As the committee we want to reaffirm our decision to have Professor Madonsela come to the committee. Having listened to the issues members are narrowing down to areas of her testimony to two areas properly aired here.”
Meanwhile, the committee heard that they had received a complaint from Mkhwebane about the non-payment of her legal team by the Office of the Public Protector. Ebrahim said the Office of the Public Protector had indicated last week that it was verifying the invoices.
In another development, Advocate Dali Mpofu SC led evidence of Nchaupe Peter Seabi, who is suing the entity for a 2011 assault by the institution’s former Limpopo head Sphelo Samuel. Samuel, who was convicted of assault, previously told the inquiry that he was appealing against his suspended sentence.