Parliament to Discuss Mkhwebane’s Fitness to Hold Office

As pressure mounts from all sides on the public protector Busiswe Mkhwebane and questions are raised about her ability to be the government’s legal watchdog, parliament will in September discuss a request to investigate her fitness to hold office and then “map out a way forward,” it was announced today.

Numerous public statements about Mkhwebane’s fitness to hold office have been made recently, including by the Minister of Public Enterprises, Pravin Gordhan, who is facing a court case against Mkhwebane over the so-called “rogue unit” allegedly created during his tenure as head of the South African Revenue Service.

Several earlier court cases have gone against her, including the Constitutional Court’s upholding an earlier ruling requiring her to pay 15 percent of the legal costs in a case relating to her report on ABSA and the South African Reserve Bank.

The Democratic Alliance, IFP and the South African Communist Party all called for an investigation into Mkhwebane. In May, after the North Gauteng High Court set aside as unlawful and invalid her report on the Gupta-linked Estina dairy farm in Vrede, the DA wrote to National Assembly Speaker Thandi Modise asking her to initiate a parliamentary inquiry.

Earlier this month Corruption Watch said in a letter to Modise that it was the national legislature’s ‘responsibility … to determine whether the public protector is guilty of misconduct, lacks capacity or is incompetent’.

Bulenani Magwanishe, head of the Portfolio Committee on Justice and Correctional Services said in a statement today, “The committee will discuss the request and map out a way forward at the first possible opportunity when it resumes its work after the Parliamentary recess period, provisionally set down for 3 September 2019. It is only after that the committee would be able to comment further on this matter.”

The DA’s John Steenhuisen said earlier this month that the DA had  long held that Mkhwebane was not a fit and proper person to occupy the office of the Public Protector.

“In the almost three years that have passed since her appointment – to which we objected – she has done nothing to convince us of her suitability. It is for this reason that we wrote to the Speaker at the start of this parliamentary term to request that Parliament consider whether or not she is a fit and proper Public Protector.”