Former public protector Thuli Madonsela will no longer be appearing before the section 194 committee probing her suspended successor Busisiwe Mkhwebane’s fitness to hold office.
Madonsela, who was subpoenaed as Mkhwebane’s witness in what was expected to be a Chapter 9 institution showdown, was supposed to give evidence regarding the Vrede Dairy Farm and CIEX-Absa investigations on Wednesday and Thursday.
However, Mkhwebane’s representative, advocate Dali Mpofu, requested that her testimony be rescheduled for an undetermined date.
Mpofu contended that his team was not fully prepared to lead Madonsela’s evidence, notwithstanding that it is his client who requested Madonsela to testify.
He said they would be doing his client a “disservice” if they continued with the evidence.
“The deadlines for the submission of professor Madonsela’s affidavit was 22 February 2023,” Mpofu said.
“We communicated this fact to her when she insisted on preparing her own statement either with the evidence leaders or ‘independently’, but not with the legal team of the public protector.
“The chairperson unilaterally and without any consultation with us granted an extension until Friday, 24 February 2023.
“That deadline too was not met in that the statement was only delivered on Saturday, 25 February 2023, when members of our team were busy preparing to travel to Cape Town and with preparations for the evidence of Ms Mvuyana, which had been interposed for 27 and 28 February 2023.”
She explained further: “Upon proper reflection and after consideration of the statement, which is not only late but also unintelligible in parts, it has become clear that we would be doing our client a huge disservice if we were to proceed with dealing with the evidence of professor Madonsela on schedule [March 2023 in spite of the above].
“Accordingly, we have firm instructions to reschedule the evidence of professor Madonsela to a later mutually convenient day and without breaching the seven-day rule.”
After lengthy engagements, the committee concluded to excuse Madonsela and work with her written statement instead.
Qubudile Dyantyi, chairperson of the inquiry, excused Madonsela and thanked her for her time after spending half of her business day waiting to give evidence.
He assured Madonsela that she would be called again should the need for her physical appearance arise, to which the former public protector said she would avail herself should she be required to come back.
“We will not be proceeding with you as originally planned that we had a date with you today and tomorrow. However, it seems like things are not going as planned,” Dyantyi said.
“If there will be a need for us to speak with you again, we will indicate that. But as for today, we want to thank you for availing yourself and apologise for essentially wasting your time.”
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