A group of black advocates has accused Advocate Nazreen Bawa, one of the evidence leaders in the impeachment hearing of suspended Public Protector Advocate Busisiwe Mkhwebane, of seeking to portray black advocates as corrupt.
Two of the senior counsel, Muzi Sikhakhane and Vuyani Ngalwana, appeared before the parliamentary committee for the impeachment of Public Protector Busisiwe Mkhwebane.
Last week, leading evidence of senior legal manager in the office of the Public Protector, Neels van der Merwe, Bawa displayed legal fees paid to different advocates, who provided services to the office since Mkhwebane took over.
Speaking on behalf of the group, which includes Mkhwebane’s legal representative at the hearings, Sikhakhane accused Bawa of creating an impression that their payment amounted to looting public funds.
“She throws the selected black advocates in order to advance the old racist stereotype that black is corrupt which we reject; whether she intended it or not is irrelevant. She did this with the full knowledge that she had outside in the media space fertile ground in the Daily Maverick. That now characterises our fees not as having been earned for legal services rendered, but as monies having been funneled … which is not true.”
Advocate Mkhwebane’s impeachment hearing continues:
Bawa sought to explain that certain mistakes were made in that process.
She took responsibility for this and apologised for attributing wrong figures to certain lawyers and not displaying the names of others.
Nazreen Bawa says, “We have not been involved in orchestration, or come, sort of, motive and divert to account to the committee. Pursuant to an instruction, we do owe an apology and … we make this apology publicly, to Advocate Ngalwana, Advocate Sikhakhane, and the others whose fees we had entered incorrectly.”
Sikhakhane was, however, not in a forging mood. According to him, Bawa’s behavior was deliberate and historical.
“This character assassination in our view, even if it was not the intention, that is what we have been subjected to since, this was published. Large sums of money … and she’s not doing it for the first time. In the case of Barnabas School in the high court, same! So, the apology is not accepted for that reason because it is contrived.”
In his cross-examination of Van der Merwe, Mpofu went back to the matter and asked what of relevance the display of the names was.
He suggested that it was done at the behest of DA MP, Kevin Mileham, who was the first to ask for the names of lawyers, who had benefited from doing work for the Public Protector’s office.
