Cape Town - Parliament’s inquiry into suspended Public Protector Busisiwe Mkhwebane’s fitness to hold office is sticking to its guns concerning a subpoena issued to former public protector Thuli Madonsela to testify before the committee.
Madonsela had written to Mkhwebane’s legal team to say she did not see how she could assist. The letter was copied to the committee.
During a committee session held before the hearings yesterday morning, Madonsela’s letter was flighted on a screen for the hybrid committee meeting to read.
It read in part: “The information you seek is with the public protector as an institution.
“Having left the institution more than six years ago, it is the institution that is best suited to respond to questions regarding its relationship with organs of state in line with its constitutional position as an independent constitutional institution that is set up to hold other organs of state accountable, including the State Security Agency.”
Madonsela said she would have been in a position to help a week after leaving office if her efforts to work with members of the public protector’s team in October 2016 had not been rebuffed by Mkhwebane.
She said Mkhwebane “flatly forbade any contact between myself and the teams I had worked with when I requested her permission to do so.”
The committee confirmed its decision to subpoena Madonsela after parliamentary legal adviser Fatima Ebrahim told them that the request for Madonsela to appear had been made in November last year and her response had been “very late”.
Meanwhile, the inquiry began hearing the testimony of pensioner Nchaupe Seabi, 81.
In 2019 Seabi sued the PPSA for R350 000 after a court found that he had been assaulted by Free State head of the Office of the Public Protector Sphelo Samuel, a previous witness.
Using the services of a translator, Seabi who testified at the request of Mkhwebane’s team repudiated Samuel’s version of events to the committee and said the only truth in Samuel’s testimony about their clash was that they were separated by staff from the office.
During his testimony in July last year, Samuel denied assaulting Seabi and said he had appealed the conviction and the sentence.
Yesterday, Seabi said 11 years later his shoulder was still very sore as a result of the assault.