Accountability Now: Busisiwe Mkhwebane and legal team playing for time at inquiry
Accountability Now’s Paul Hoffman said that suspended Public Protector Busisiwe Mkhwebane and her legal team were playing for time at the Section 194 impeachment proceedings in Parliament.
Mkhwebane is facing a motion for her removal centring on her investigations into the bailout the South African Reserve Bank provided for what was then Bankorp during the late 1980s and early 1990s; as well into the Vrede dairy farm scandal and into the Financial Sector Conduct Authority (FSCA).
All the reports that Mkhwebane penned on the back of these investigations have, at least in part, been set aside by the courts, which have also often been scathing of Mkhwebane and even slapped her with personal costs orders.
There have been a number of tense exchanges between Mkhwebane’s counsel, Dali Mpofu, and committee chair, Qubudile Dyantyi, during the parliamentary proceedings and they reached a head on Tuesday when Mpofu asked for a postponement.
At one point, he told Dyanti that he would “pay one day”.
When Dyanti asked Mpofu if he was threatening him, he replied it was in fact “a promise”.
Mpofu has since said that he, in fact, was exercising restraint.
But speaking to 702’s Bongani Bingwa on Thursday morning, Hoffman disagreed.
He said that Mpofu’s conduct was part of their “overall strategy”.
“They’ve tried to manufacture grounds for asking the chair to recuse himself or to have him removed by a court of law, as a consequence of which, the whole process will have to start again next year,” Hoffmann said.
He said that at the heart of the matter was Mkhwebane’s salary and benefits, which she risked losing if she was unseated.
“And remember, the clock is ticking. The term of office of the Public Protector ends in October next year. If she can make this inquiry last until then, she has achieved the salary she earns as Public Protector until the end of her term of office,” Hoffman said.
-EWN
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