Cosatu ramps up pressure on Mkhwebane over ‘political bias’

The Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) deputy general secretary, Solly Phetoe, yesterday said the union supports those who question the public protector’s fitness to hold office, and called on the relevant people to investigate her apparent political bias.

“We call on all affected parties to use legal processes to challenge its findings if they have any objections and for the national parliament to play its oversight role in protecting the integrity of that strategic institution of our democracy,” Phetoe said.

Public Protector Busisiwe Mkhwebane has been criticised in several court judgments for the apparent irrationality and “incompetence” displayed in some of her her findings, on several issues from her report on the Gupta-linked Estina dairy project in the Free State, her report on the lifeboat for Absa and many other reports linked with the President Cyril Ramaphosa.

She has also been victim of several cost orders against herself personally, and her office.

Phetoe said there appears to be a political bias in Mkhwebane’s office.

“We are concerned by the political stench in that office and we have the same opinion as those who say the office is deteriorating and unfocused. Everything she does smells of a political game.”

He added that the public protector is being used to keep the president from focusing on more dire issues.

Meanwhile, it was reported yesterday that Mkhwebane has given up on asking the Constitutional Court to let her appeal the Pravin Gordhan/Sars judgment delivered against her last month by Judge Sulet Potterill in the high court.

She and her office reportedly filed papers in retreat.

Last month, Potterill granted an interdict to Minister of Public Enterprises Pravin Gordhan to stop Mkhwebane from enforcing the action stipulated in her report, which he said if allowed to go ahead would cause him “irreparable harm”.

The matter is before the courts.

Potterill found Gordhan’s legal team was correct in arguing that the harm to him would be irreparable if the interdict was not granted.

She slammed Mkhwebane’s remedial action as “vague, contradictory and/ or nonsensical” and slapped her and the Economic Freedom Fighters, which supported her in court, with cost orders.

Potterill questioned why Mkhwebane had decided to look into complaints dating back more than two years, something she was not required to do.

She added that Gordhan had established a prima facie right for the interdict to be granted by bringing up the fact the complaints were on issues dating back to 2007 and 2010, and that Mkhwebane had not disclosed the “special circumstances” leading to her dealing with complaints over issues so far back.

The public protector’s remedial action called for Ramaphosa to take action against Gordhan, whom she found to have breached rules while he was heading the SA Revenue Service.

Mkhwebane found Gordhan had unlawfully established a high-risk unit aimed at clamping down on syndicates who were infiltrating the revenue service.

She also said Gordhan had broken the rules in a matter in which a senior staffer was reinstated after being awarded early retirement.

– Additional reporting by News24 Wire and Charles Cilliers.

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