Tough times lie ahead for Mkhwebane

JUST less than 24 hours after President Cyril Ramaphosa described her investigations into donations into his CR17 ANC presidential campaign as “fundamentally and irretrievably flawed”, Public Protector advocate Busisiwe Mkhwebane has been given a bloody nose by the highest court in the land for her handling of the probe into the Bankorp-Absa bailout.

The court was scathing on Mkhwebane.

Last year, the Pretoria High Court ordered that Mkhwebane pay 15% of the costs in that matter from her own pocket.

She went to the Concourt to appeal and yesterday she was left gobsmacked as the majority judgment by justices Leona Theron and Sisi Khampepe found she was “not honest” and acted in “bad faith”, among other scathing remarks.

In the Absa bailout case, her failure to disclose she had met with the State Security Agency and with the Presidency (then under Jacob Zuma) on June 7, just before she released her report into the Bankorp-Absa matter, came back to haunt her.

The court ruled she was dishonest during her investigations and had failed to engage those implicated before she published her final report. That damning statement will bolster Ramaphosa’s court case against her, in which he is seeking an urgent application for Mkhwebane’s report on him violating the executive code to be set aside.

Ramaphosa on Sunday night described Mkhwebane’s report as containing “numerous factual inaccuracies of a material nature”. After the Concourt ruling yesterday, those who have been calling for her removal from office have been emboldened. And depending on how the court cases brought by the likes of Finance Minister Tito Mboweni, Ramaphosa and Public Enterprises Minister Pravin Gordhan go, tough times lie ahead for Mkhwebane.

It is cold comfort for her that the minority judgment penned by Chief Justice Mogoeng Mogoeng (Goliath AJ concurring) says the high court judgment should have been set aside because the basic personal costs definition requirements of bad faith and gross negligence were not shown.

In the coming weeks or months, she may find herself in exactly the same corner.

Mkhwebane must just do her job legally, competently and professionally.