Former Public Protector Professor Thuli Madonsela will, for now, not give oral evidence at the Section 194 Inquiry, probing suspended Public Protector Adv Busisiwe Mkhwebane’s fitness to hold office.
The Inquiry will use Madonsela’s prepared written statement. However, Mkhwebane’s legal counsel warned that he intended to pursue other channels to force Madonsela to testify.
Madonsela was meant to testify at the inquiry on Wednesday and Thursday. But this was delayed for almost three hours until the Committee ruled she was not needed.
Madonsela was due to give testimony on the CIEX and Vrede Dairy Farm reports.
Adv Dali Mpofu complained that they wanted Madonsela’s testimony rescheduled as they needed time to prepare.
“You and your committee are fixated on the rigidity of the programme. Yesterday one listened with pain on YouTube, member after member saying no we can’t grant this request of the public protector to give time. Why? Nobody mentions the public protector. Nobody mentions the issue of fairness. No, it’s about we have so many committees, we sit in so many committees, we have this burden the committee has a programme and members have a lot of work. The person to whom you owe a duty of fairness is not even mentioned. It’s all about you,” says Mkhwebane’s counsel Adv Dali Mpofu.
Inquiry chairperson Qubudile Dyantyi replies, “No, you were not excluded from the committee, as the committee was having its own meeting. A meeting of members.”
After a to and fro, MPs agreed not to require Madonsela to give oral evidence, except UDM leader Bantu Holomisa.
“We take that as a committee, a written evidence which is on record in this committee and therefore it helps us as a committee to do away with the proposed oral evidence of Monday and Tuesday,” Dyantyi adds.
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Mpofu rejected the decision that Madonsela was no longer needed.
“One of two things is going to happen which is to take that issue to court or to make a fresh application for you to summon the witness. Maybe that’s what we need to do because we can exhaust our remedies,” Adv. Mpofu explains.
Madonsela says she would assist with relevant evidence if needed in future. “Should there be anything relevant that I can assist with I’m always willing to assist.”
Earlier, Mpofu and the Evidence leader were at odds as to who would lead Madonsela’s evidence if this was required. This is because Madonsela was summoned to appear last month but has prepared a statement independent of Mkhwebane’s legal team.
“We can’t lead somebody on a statement prepared by somebody else. It doesn’t happen. If we take her statement then obviously, we will lead her,” says Adv. Mpofu.
“The decision whether she wanted to consult with the PP’s team and whether she wanted them to do the statement that is the witness’s choice in the election. I was never told by the chairperson or the committee that this was somebody we really needed to hear from, and you should go out and do a statement,” says Adv. Nazreen Bawa, Evidence leader.
Mpofu also took issue with the legality of Madonsela’s written statement.
“There is something fundamentally wrong and possibly illegal about that because that version says it was signed in Stellenbosch, but it was commissioned in North Riding Johannesburg which is a physical impossibility,” Adv. Mpofu reiterates.
“I’ve now clarified with Prof Madonsela that she was with the commissioner of oaths yesterday in his presence and had it signed this is his business address,” says Fatima Ebrahim, Legal advisor/inquiry.
The enquiry proceeded with the evidence of the chief investigator in the Public Protector’s office, Rodney Mataboge, on Wednesday afternoon. Mkhwebane is set to testify on the 15th of March.
