Our public protector is really a public danger and should be shown the door
It’s been proved beyond doubt that Busisiwe Mkhwebane is a poor replacement for Thuli Madonsela as public protector. For a position that required absolute integrity, she was given the job despite her background shrouded in secrecy. The DA refused to support her appointment, citing claims that she was a spy. She denies the allegation and intends to take the party to court. Questions have also been asked about her academic qualification.
Madonsela was always going to be a hard act to follow. She conducted herself with absolute probity — a stickler for rules and due process — and performed her duties without fear, favour or prejudice, as per the command of her office. She had no axe to grind. Even those at the receiving end of her adverse findings could not fault her motives. Which was why some resorted to character assassination. Despite the vilification, she emerged unscathed and with her reputation enhanced.
For a long time, Madonsela was the only ray of hope amid the gloom visited on the country by Jacob Zuma and his administration. Her report on state capture was an eye-opener. Apart from introducing a new phrase in our political lexicon, it alerted us to a surreptitious and stunning attempt not only to take over the government but to turn it into an instrument for wholesale plunder.
Incredibly, we were not even aware that such a silent coup was under way. She stood up to Zuma, and prevailed. Ultimately Zuma had to go. And with uncanny foresight, she left the finalisation of the state capture report not to her successor, but to a judge who was to be appointed, not by the president but by the chief justice. It is no exaggeration to declare that Madonsela changed the course of our history.
Enter Mkhwebane. She’s been a disaster from the beginning. Despite having limped into the job, she exhibited supreme arrogance. The first victims of her vanity were the parliamentarians who had given her the job. She had hardly settled in when she was asked to appear before the ad hoc committee set up to conduct an inquiry of the shambles at the SABC. Madonsela had produced a report on the rot at the broadcaster and Mkhwebane was required to elaborate. No, she couldn’t come, she told the members. She could get her staff to brief them in camera, if they wished. She was biting the hand that feeds her; the MPs were none too pleased.
Arrogance is a human trait that can probably be overlooked or forgiven in certain instances. But ignorance of responsibility, especially in such a high position, cannot be excused. Mkhwebane should not have been allowed to stay in her job a day longer after her findings on the Bankorp/CIEX report were overturned on review by a full bench of the High Court in Pretoria. The court described her conduct as “unacceptable” and said she had displayed ignorance of her constitutional duty to be impartial.
Mkhwebane, in her report in June, had ordered Absa to pay back R1.1-billion for an apartheid-era bailout of Bankorp by the Reserve Bank. And in a leap of faith, she had also directed parliament to amend the constitution to remove the Reserve Bank’s status and mandate to keep inflation in check. The currency lost 2% of its value hours after the report was released.
On review, her findings were not only overturned with costs, she was ordered to pay 15% of the Reserve Bank’s costs from her own pocket. What was even more concerning than the stupidity of her report was the cast of characters she consulted in the process of crafting it. She had twice met the Zuma presidency and the State Security Agency, her former employer.
She refused to have an audience with Absa, but had no qualm about meeting the Gupta-linked Black First Land First, which don’t have any particular interest in the matter. She apparently also had time for a Holocaust denialist and apartheid apologist Stephen Goodson. There’s a method in the madness, it seems. Mkhwebane is more devious than ignorant.
Her report on the Estina dairy farm scandal, in which millions of rands were allegedly illegally channelled to the Guptas, has left many confused. The two politicians allegedly behind the scandal, former Free State premier Ace Magashule and Mosebenzi Zwane, have not been mentioned or investigated. Instead, Mkhwebane has recommended that Magashule take action against implicated officials. She’s averse to investigating politicians, especially those who, like her, idolise Zuma. She has, for instance, absolved David Mahlobo for lying to parliament despite irrefutable evidence to the contrary.
Mkhwebane was supposed to have appeared before the justice committee this week but failed to do so, citing some undisclosed family emergency. She seems to have learnt from Dudu Myeni and Bathabile Dlamini in giving committees the runaround. When she appears in parliament this week, she must not just be given an earful, steps must be put in place to show her the door.
Now that Zuma is history, the ANC MPs will hopefully have the courage to get rid of all his holdovers. Parliament needs to take to heart the words of Judge Cynthia Pretorius in the Bankorp/CIEX judgment: “It is necessary to show our displeasure with the unacceptable way in which she [Mkhwebane] conducted the investigation. In the matter before us, it transpired that the public protector does not fully understand her constitutional duty to be impartial and to perform her functions without fear, favour or prejudice.” Strong words.
Mkhwebane is no public protector. She’s a danger to the public. She should be given her marching orders.