#TBT: Malema tells Mkhwebane, once a spy, always a spy!

This week Finance Minister Malusi Gigaba became the first senior Cabinet minister to accuse public protector Advocate Busisiwe Mkhwebane of failing in her duties.

In court papers filed this week, Gigaba slammed public protector Busisiwe Mkhwebane’s investigation into the so-called Bankorp/Absa lifeboat deal and said she “simply failed to conduct a diligent investigation in compliance with her statutory and constitutional mandate”.

On today’s edition of Throwback Thursday, we revisit a legendary press conference where Malema regretted EFF’s decision to support Mkhwebane’s candidacy in parliament.

On June 9, during a press conference at which the EFF announced it would be reporting companies implicated in corrupt Transnet deals to Canadian, Chinese and US authorities, Malema emphatically announced he received a tip-off during the interviews that Mkhwebane was a “spook”.

“We must ask her [the public protector] how far you are with taking the DA to court because they said you are a spy. If you are not a spy, because now we believe you are spy. Take the DA to court because you said you want to challenge them. Once a spy, always a spy.

“We should have listened, before the DA spoke about the spy I was the first one to receive a message that she is a spy from a reliable spook. I was told by spooks themselves that she is a spook,” Malema’s verbose rant continued.

The CiC offered reasons the EFF went against the advice and supported the ad-hoc committee decision to endorse Mkhwebane as Adv Thuli Madonsela’s successor after her term expired in the middle of 2016.

“I decided let us give her a chance. Yoh, yoh, yoh! We didn’t know what we were doing. Now we regret supporting this comrade. She is going to collapse that office,” Malema said, and later added the only people who support her “ANC drum majorettes”.

Malema told the gathering he had lost confidence in Mkhwebane’s ability to discharge her duties.

“I saw an EFF document saying we have referred a matter to the public protector. I said, huh, why is the EFF sending thing to this one now? It is just a waste of time. She is not going to do anything to protect the public purse.

“The first thing she did when she took office was to change the TV channels to the Guptas. If she is patriotic why not change it to SABC. That thing is not even a TV [channel],” he rattled on.

He reassured the media contingent that his party will “solve” the matter. He expressed fear that should the rumours proven to be true it meant his on party has also “misled parliament”.

“We are not scared of her. Let her do the right thing. That is all we are asking. Now there are stories she tampered with reports from Absa. You are tempted to believe those stories because of the way she carries herself,” Malema concluded.

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