Cape Town - President Cyril Ramaphosa has rejected a suggestion by UDM leader Bantu Holomisa that he should testify to Parliament’s historic Committee for Section 194 Enquiry impeachment hearings against suspended Public Protector Busisiwe Mkhwebane.
On Tuesday, Holomisa suggested that the committee call the president to testify about Mkhwebane’s controversial CR17 report to ensure that everything was done above board.
However, a statement issued by the presidency said the National Assembly, not the president, initiated the inquiry to investigate grounds of misconduct and incompetence against Advocate Busisiwe Mkhwebane, who occupied the Office of the Public Protector.
“President Cyril Ramaphosa did not make any allegations against advocate Mkhwebane. Therefore, the president cannot be compelled to provide evidence proving or disproving these accusations.”
The statement said Holomisa’s speculation that the CR17 campaign “may have” used public funds was “baseless, misdirected, vindictive and an abuse of parliamentary processes and privilege”.
The Constitutional Court judgment last year ruled that the public protector had no authority to investigate the CR17 campaign, given that this was not an organ of state and therefore not within the public protector’s remit.
“Parliament does not have the mandate to review Constitutional Court judgments in the separation of powers of the executive, legislature and judiciary,” the statement said.
Meanwhile, the hearings continued with testimony from former SA Revenue Service executive turned whistle-blower Johann van Loggerenberg, who testified virtually.
Evidence leader advocate Nazreen Bawa SC began the morning by taking Van Loggerenberg through the judgment of Public Enterprises Minister Pravin Gordhan’s application to review Mkhwebane’s “rogue unit” report.
The 2014 report was reviewed and set aside by the North Gauteng High Court in June 2020, and Bawa said the Office of the Public Protector was the first applicant and Mkhwebane the second and that the court made a cost order against Mkhwebane.
As she did so, Holomisa asked her to provide examples of court cases Mkhwebane had won, but committee chairperson Qubudile Dyantyi (ANC) ruled the question irrelevant.
At this point, Mkhwebane’s advocate, Dali Mpofu SC, asked for clarification about whether Bawa was leading the evidence or asking a question and said if it was a question it was the longest one ever.
Dyantyi told Mpofu that Bawa had indicated when she began that before asking Van Loggerenberg any questions, she would first outline the cases relevant to her questions.
Explaining her process, advocate Bawa said: “If I don’t tell you a little bit about the background story, we’re going to have everybody on the committee wanting to ask questions as to where all the pieces fit.”
Van Loggerenberg, who worked in the investigative unit that would become known as the “rogue unit”, left Sars in February 2015 after what he described as a traumatic experience.
He said that when he was still working at Sars, it became the centre of an intense and devious, orchestrated propaganda campaign that had begun as far back as 2009 and that culminated towards the end of 2014.
He said the attacks were “focused on a very tiny investigative unit within the revenue service.”
He said the campaign was meant to effectively capture Sars by getting rid of people, bullying people and preventing people from saying anything publicly that would contradict the propaganda.
Van Loggerenberg said when he blew the whistle and an investigation was conducted in terms of the Public Protector Act, advocate Mkhwebane ignored his complaints.
“I wasn’t heard and in this whole saga I was simply disregarded as if I didn’t exist and I was completely irrelevant.”
The hearings continue today with Van Loggerenberg’s testimony, which will be followed by that of former deputy Sars commissioner Ivan Pillay, against whom Mkhwebane also lost a case.