SIYABONGA SITHOLE
Member of the African Transformation Movement (ATM), Mzwanele Manyi says Acting Public Protector, advocate Kholeka Gcaleka is the protector of President Cyril Ramaphosa, and not the protector of South Africans.
“First, she agreed to give President Cyril Ramaphosa an extension to answer advocate Busisiwe Mkhwebane’s 31 questions, and a few days later she withdraws legal support from her case. Clearly she is a Ramaphosa protector and not a public protector,” Manyi said in a Twitter space conversation on Thursday.
Manyi, who is also the Jacob Zuma Foundation spokesperson, was reacting to news that Gcaleka had withdrawn legal support for the impeachment case against the suspended public protector.
In her letter to the Registrar of the Court, Gcaleka wrote: “Please take note that Seanago Attorneys were not authorised, instructed or briefed by me as the Acting Public Protector or the chief executive of the (Office of the) Public Protector as the accounting officer to deliver the aforesaid application for leave to appeal nor the notice of amendment ‘Part B’ to the notice of motion.”
This is after Mkhwebane’s attorneys, Seanago, had on Monday filed an application for leave to appeal a judgment in the Cape High Court that refused to grant her an interim “Part A” interdict to stop impeachment proceedings in Parliament, and thus stop her suspension by Ramaphosa.
After losing “Part A”, Mkhwebane had sought to have “Part B” of her case in the Western Cape High Court set aside her suspension and had also amended her court papers in this part of her case.
Manyi lashed out her Gcaleka, accusing her of extending favours to the president.
“Here you have a person acting in a manner that is not straight. We, as the African Transformation Movement, had written to her after suspecting that something was amiss and indeed we found that she had granted Ramaphosa an extension without telling the public about this, and a few days later she does this,” Manyi said.
“She is going to be exposed. She can run up and down and it does not matter, because nothing will change. The processes in Parliament are going to continue. I think it is God’s hand that is showing us what is really going on.
“So she is being exposed… As a member of the African Transformation Movement we do not have confidence in the Acting Public Protector in the manner that she has been acting, because of all her secret deals with the president following the extension granted to Ramaphosa,” Manyi said.