President Cyril Ramaphosa has declined to voluntarily testify before the Section 194 Committee which is investigating the suspended Public Protector Busisiwe Mkhwebane’s fitness to hold office.
Mkhwebane’s legal representative Advocate Dali Mpofu has revealed this before the committee.
Mkhwebane is also challenging her suspension by Ramaphosa. The inquiry resumed on Wednesday morning with the fourth witness taking the stand.
Mpofu says he wrote to Ramaphosa last week requesting him to testify before the committee.
“On the 19th of July, we wrote a letter to the President, the letter that is envisaged in directive 5.9, for him to voluntarily come and testify and we outlined the reasons in the letter. We will send it to the evidence leader, but in any event, it will come to you in due course when we take the next step. But the important thing is to report that we received a response to that letter on Monday, which was the deadline, the President has declined our invitation to come and testify voluntarily. That correspondence will form part of what we will forward to you as the next steps towards ensuring his attendance.”
The fourth witness, Sphelo Samuel who is a former senior investigator at the Free State office of the Public Protector, to testify:
Mkhwebane’s suspension
Meanwhile, in his closing remarks before the Western Cape High Court on Tuesday, Advocate Mpofu argued, among others, that Mkhwebane’s suspension is a direct result of investigating the President for the Phala Phala matter.
He accused the President of making sure that anybody else except Mkhwebane investigates this matter.
Mkhwebane has advanced several grounds on which she believes her suspension was unconstitutional.
One of the Public Protector’s arguments is that the President should not have suspended her on the word of the National Assembly Speaker that impeachment proceedings against her had resumed.
She argues that this was not the job of the speaker and that the President should have independently established whether this was the case.
She further argues that the current hearings in the National Assembly are not those intended by the Constitution to remove her.
Advocate Karrisha Pillay on behalf of the President argued, however, that he had relied on more than just the speaker to make his decision.
The Democratic Alliance for its part argued that Mkhwebane’s challenge to her suspension is merely a delaying tactic to avoid being held accountable.
The party said numerous judges have already dismissed her various court cases related to the parliamentary inquiry into her conduct.
Advocate Steven Budlender told the Cape Town High Court that a total of 21 judges, from the High Court to the Constitutional Court, have all dismissed Mkhwebane’s challenge to the validity of the parliamentary rules under which she is being impeached.
Judgment was reserved on the matter.
