Public Protector Advocate Busisiwe Mkhwebane during the release of her reports at the Public Protector's offices in Pretoria, 28 January 2020. Picture: Jacques Nelles
Public Protector Busisiwe Mkhwebane has suspended Sphelo Samuel, the head of her office in the Free State, after he wrote a formal letter to her on Tuesday calling on her to resign.
His letter was penned on the same day Mkhwebane suffered a devastating court loss to President Cyril Ramaphosa when her report and recommendations – into him and his funding team for the ANC’s 2017 elections – were set aside.
Samuel was served with a notice of suspension on Wednesday.
In his letter, which has been circulated on social media, he pulled no punches and accused Mkhwebane of having run the public protector’s office into the ground.
He wrote, on an official letterhead: “I am directing this letter to request (more like beg you) to resign your position…”
Samuel accused Mkhwebane of wasting taxpayers’ money in defending her cases when they were being exposed for having a personal and/or political agenda, and “a basic knowledge of the law and its practical application”.
He accused her of instilling a culture of fear and intimidation in the office, and that staff morale was at an all-time low.
“We do not deserve your leadership (rather lack thereof),” he concluded in the letter.
Samuel, who has two decades of experience in the public protector’s office, had previously written to National Assembly Speaker Thandi Modise in February, calling for Mkhwebane to be investigated. He accused Mkhwebane of mismanagement and other misconduct, including in her handling of the Vrede dairy farm investigation.
At the time, Mkhwebane’s spokesperson, Oupa Segalwe, accused Samuel of acting in bad faith.
“Only when action is being contemplated against him … he submits an affidavit to parliament and, not only leaks it to the media, but actively takes media interviews in contravention of the public protector media policy.”
A senior investigator for Mkhwebane, Tebogo Kekana, also called for Mkhwebane to be investigated in December last year.
On Tuesday, the High Court in Pretoria delivered a scathing and damaging judgment against Mkhwebane’s findings and remedial action in her investigation into Ramaphosa’s ANC presidential campaign donations.
A full bench of judges set aside her findings, stating that she had acted unlawfully, recklessly and without jurisdiction to investigate the president’s political party campaign.
The court also ruled that Mkhwebane’s findings included material errors in law. Furthermore, the court found she did not have jurisdiction to investigate the funding of the CR17 campaign.
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