A parliamentary committee probing Busisiwe Mkhwebane’s fitness to hold office treated her unfairly from the beginning, the suspended public protector has said.
Mkhwebane, who has been out of office since June 2022 after President Cyril Ramaphosa suspended her pending the conclusion of the investigation, said on Wednesday that the committee had repeatedly failed to comply with its rules on fairness and that she continued to participate in the proceedings under protest.
According to the rule, “the committee must ensure that the inquiry is conducted in a reasonable and procedurally fair manner, within a reasonable timeframe”.
“I remember when I was suspended, my e-mails were closed. I couldn’t access them from the 9th of June, I think until the first week of July,” Mkhwebane said.
“I couldn’t access my emails. I couldn’t access certain information and there was key and critical information from that.”
She said a week into the proceedings, she questioned the participation of DA MP Kevin Mileham in the proceedings as a conflict of interest. This was after she discovered that DA MP Natasha Mazzone, who triggered the inquiry, was his spouse.
“I didn’t know that he’s the spouse of the complainant, honourable Mazzone.”
She said the committee also ignored pending court cases relating to the inquiry, which ought to have been dealt with before the proceedings continued.
The legal dispute over the committee’s decision to decline her application for Mileham and committee chairperson Qubudile Dyantyi to recuse themselves was heard in the high court in Cape Town on Monday.
Mkhwebane said if she was successful in those proceedings, the inquiry would have to start afresh, which would have been a waste of taxpayers’ money.
She also pointed out that the committee expanded the scope of the inquiry even after an independent panel that tested whether she had a prima-facie case to answer had whittled down the issues to be interrogated.
“So when all those things were happening, I was just hoping that it would change, but what then became the last straw was the inhumane treatment,” she said.
She recalled an incident when she was feeling sick, but the committee declined her legal team’s plea for postponement.
“When we raised the issue that we cannot proceed because I am not there as the accused person, and I need to be present, but I’m sick. But then the committee proceeded to examine or ask questions to [the witness].
“I felt as if it meant I’m not human. Hence I said, even earlier, that hardened criminals would be given that opportunity.
“But I was never given an opportunity. So the build-up of all these issues, unfortunately, makes me feel … because it’s what I feel … that I was never given that opportunity.”
She warned that her ombudsman colleagues throughout the continent were keenly watching the proceedings, saying the committee needed to be cautious to avoid setting a bad precedent for other countries on the continent.
“So I think they should be learning. They should know, in the future, that if such a process is conducted, [it should] be as objective as possible, and make sure that you are seen to be objective,” she said.
Unfortunately for me now, she said, “that’s how I feel and I still feel like I never received any assistance”.
“It was worse. I mean, finding women like honourable Gondwe proceeding … even if I had a heart attack, or I died that day, it means to them it was nothing,” she said, referring to DA MP and committee member Mimmy Gondwe.
“Sometimes I would say the way I’m treated in South Africa … I used to joke sometimes and say, you know what, maybe I must apply for asylum from another country … that made me feel bad.
“There was one stage where I, well, I don’t know whether you saw me … fortunately we were doing a virtual platform … well, I cried literally, because I felt that I went all out for this country,” she said in a response to her lawyer advocate Dali Mpofu, before breaking down into tears.
A committee member the called for a break. The proceedings continue today.
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