Cape Town - Public Protector Busisiwe Mkhwebane is up in arms with the Section 194 Committee over its decision to receive a presentation from evidence leaders on the important aspects of her testimony in her impeachment inquiry.
On Tuesday, Mkhwebane gave the committee until Thursday to stop with its “committee meeting” or face legal action. “I am therefore advised to demand as I hereby do, that you and/ or the committee must refrain from continuing with the ongoing alleged illegal ‘committee meeting’ forthwith.
“Failure to do so will result in taking whatever necessary steps available to me without any further notice to you,” she wrote in her letter.
On Monday, the committee decided to receive the presentation from evidence leaders while a solution is sought to fund Mkhwebane’s legal costs after the Public Protector South Africa stopped funding her.
Mkhwebane is currently without legal representation.
The parliamentary legal services have indicated that there was nothing illegal in the presentation, and that Mkhwebane should be afforded an opportunity to deal with whatever evidence was placed in the meeting.
However, Mkhwebane said the “committee meeting” was actually an opportunity given to the evidence leaders.
This was done to present closing arguments regarding some of the charges contained in the motion against her.
She said the inquiry was correctly postponed until funding of her legal representation was resolved.
“I support the said postponement as a sensible step given the failure to resolve the current crisis directly and solely caused by the letter from Advocate Kholeka Gcaleka and which threatens to collapse the inquiry at a crucial stage when I am in the process of stating my side of the story.
“What was most puzzling was your unilateral and unsolicited decision to invite the evidence leaders to present an analysis of the evidence which was led by me thus far to the committee during what has been labelled as a committee meeting, but is in actual fact a back-door enquiry thinly disguised as a ‘meeting’,” she wrote in her letter to committee chairperson Qubudile Dyantyi.
Neither did the committee respond to Mkhwebane’s letter, after she had wanted it introduced into the record of the meeting, only to be muted when she disregarded Dyantyi.
When Dyantyi adjourned the meeting on Tuesday, he announced that the meeting would continue on Wednesday.
Further evidence is then expected to be given, with further presentations on areas already highlighted by Advocate Nazreen Bawa provided.
Cape Times