Public Protector Busisiwe Mkhwebane not backing down

Public Protector Busisiwe Mkhwebane is taking her bid to quash the perjury charges she’s currently facing to the high court.

This emerged during her appearance in the Pretoria Magistrate’s Court on Thursday.

Advocate Paul Hoffman, who heads up anticorruption lobby group Accountability Now, opened a case against Mkhwebane in 2019 and in December 2020, a decision was taken to prosecute her. She was summonsed to appear in court on three counts of perjury.

One count has since been withdrawn on the back of previous representations Mkhwebane had made to the national director of public prosecutions (NDPP). But she subsequently made further representations to have the two remaining charges against her withdrawn as well.

At her last appearance in court, in February, it emerged these had been unsuccessful and proceedings were postponed to Thursday to allow her and her lawyers time to consider their next step.

ALSO READ: Ramaphosa’s 10 day offer to Mkhwebane ‘quite generous’ – experts

Advocate Tiny Seboko on Thursday told the court their instructions were now to lodge a review application in the high court. Proceedings were then postponed to August.

The parties were hopeful by then, the review application would have been argued and a ruling handed down.

Bankorp

The case against Mkhwebane centres on her alleged lies under oath about clandestine meetings she had with former president Jacob Zuma, during the court case over her Bankorp-CIEX report.

In the 2017 report, the public protector found Bankorp – one of the largest banks in SA at the time – had been “illegally gifted” a R1.125 billion bailout by the SA Reserve Bank (Sarb) in the late 1980s and early 1990s.

And her binding recommendations included that Absa, which had since acquired Bankorp, pay back the money. But Sarb and Absa both took the report on review and were successful, not only in convincing a full bench of the High Court in Pretoria to set the report aside, but also in securing a costs order against Mkhwebane.

She has previously expressed confidence the court would clear her of any wrongdoing and insisted she was a “law-abiding citizen”.

NOW READ: Mkhwebane unlikely to complete probe into Ramaphosa’s leaked audio on time