Busisiwe Mkhwebane

Doubled up with . . . fear?

They say hell hath no fury like a Mampara scorned, and public protector Busi Mkhwebane says she has the law on her side should anyone try to scorn her. This week, her lawyers wrote to the Sunday Times demanding Hogarth retract his calling her a Mampara last month, over her “probe” of Western Cape premier Helen Zille’s colonialism tweets. A Mampara, as Mkhwebane’s lawyer correctly pointed out in her letter of demand, “means ‘a foolish person’ and/or ‘idiot person’ ”, which “constitute [sic] an ‘insult’ to the public protector”. Threatening Hogarth with a R40 000 fine or a year in jail in a free democracy rather reinforces Hogarth’s headline “It’s her we need protection from”. We’ll wait for this double-Mampara’s proposed “remedial action”. Two years in jail, an R80 000 fine?