Mkhwebane has ‘no legal basis’ to make parly publish CR17 donors – Tsenoli

Public Protector Busisiwe Mkhwebane appears to have made a new enemy after calling on the speaker of the national assembly to demand that President Ramaphosa reveals all the donors of his CR17 campaign for the ANC presidency, a request deputy speaker Lechesa Tsenoli said had “no legal basis”.

Tsenoli was acting speaker at the time of Mkhwebane’s request, filing court papers in response which side with the president in calling on Mkhwebane’s remedial actions aimed at the president to be overturned.

Mkhwebane also called on parliament’s speaker to refer the president to the joint committee on ethics and members’ interests over her report on the CR17 campaign’s finding that the he was allegedly dishonest in parliament when he responded to a question on a donation to his campaign by Bosasa.

“I do not have the power to demand publication of the donations received by” Ramaphosa, Tsenoli said.

READ MORE: Ramaphosa calls on Mkhwebane to explain where she got his CR17 emails

In addition, he feels Mkhwebane’s findings in her report – which also implicated the president in alleged money laundering –  is overreaching in terms of her own powers.

On February 4 and 5, Ramaphosa will argue for the dismissal of the report’s remedial action at the high court in Pretoria.

Parliamentary speaker Thandi Modise and National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) boss Shamila Batohi have joined his case.

In Modise’s case, this is because of the remedial action Mkhwebane called on the parliamentary speaker to enact, and Batohi joins because as part of her remedial action, Mkhwebane also called on Batohi to “take note” of her report and “conduct further investigation into the prima facie evidence of money laundering as uncovered during my investigation”.

This prompted Batohi to ask Mkhwebane whether there had been a “misunderstanding” about the “independent mandates about our respective offices”.

READ MORE: Mkhwebane suspects Ramaphosa of money laundering

The court face-off comes as Mkhwebane faces a potential parliamentary inquiry into her fitness to hold office.

The Democratic Alliance has called for this on multiple occasions, due to the various adverse findings made against Mkhwebane in court, including the scathing judgments which accompanied the overturning of her reports on Absa/Bankcorp, the Estina dairy farm.

Her appeal of the dismissal of the Absa/Bankcorp report led to the Constitutional Court finding that the public protector was dishonest, acted in bad faith, and fell “egregiously short of what is required” of her office.

If she loses against Ramaphosa in early February, this will likely escalate attempts to remove her through the inquiry.

(Compiled by Daniel Friedman)

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