Nkosikhulule Nyembezi
Cape Town - Busisiwe Mkhwebane’s return to the Constitutional Court to demand unlimited state funding of her defence and her latest failure to appoint a legal team suggests a last throw of the dice in her bid to derail the Section 194 committee inquiring into her fitness for office.
She has influential political connections and is desperate for logistical support. She has shown she can use it well and deserves to get it, as long as there is a chance of exposing scandals that could prevent another presidential run for Cyril Ramaphosa.
Mkhwebane did not continue with her testimony last week after halting it on March 31, due to an impasse about the funding of her legal team.
The current impasse started on March 1, when the Office of the Public Protector (PP) informed Mkhwebane it could not continue to foot her mounting legal bill in the financial year which began on April 1.
She did not brief advocate Dali Mpofu, SC, and his team, consisting of two junior advocates and two representatives from Seanego Attorneys, beyond March 31.
Her testimony came to a halt when she insisted that the state pay for her legal defence, forcing the Office of the PP, with Parliament and Treasury’s involvement, to find a further R4 million from its retained surplus from the 2021-22 financial year, and availed this for the costs until the end of the process.
In a letter to the committee dated May 4, Mkhwebane wrote: “Going forward, I need time to secure legal representation. I am not sure as to where I will get a legal team that will agree to your unrealistic and absurd terms dictating that the work to be undertaken must not exceed an amount of R4m or a period of one month.”
By the end of last week, her position had not changed, and she appeared before the committee without a legal team.
On May 5, Mkhwebane asked the Constitutional Court – whose judges she threatened with a complaint to the Judicial Services Commission – to clarify her legal funding.
Mkhwebane wants the Constitutional Court, which previously found she was entitled to legal representation during the inquiry to order that Parliament, inquiry chairperson Qubudile Dyantyi and President Cyril Ramaphosa and “alternatively, the state, bear the legal obligation to provide resources” for that legal representation.
The government’s reluctance to pay for Mkhwebane’s additional legal fees has failed utterly in its undeclared objective of deterring Mkhwebane’s aggression against the parliamentary processes from holding her accountable for her actions by pronouncing on her fitness for office.
It failed to curb her initial incursions at the initiation stage of the inquiry and to restrain her legal team’s unprofessional conduct during the hearing. It has not destroyed her political manoeuvring or dissuaded her cronies, let alone her fans from maliciously attacking witnesses exposing her incompetence and ulterior motives.
Her suspension from office may have curbed her trail of overreaching political inquiries pursued with some current and former partners, but hardly by much.
She can afford to play long. Either the committee receives further funding to complete its work by the end of May or soon thereafter, or the process collapses and causes Mkhwebane to walk away without a conclusion.
Reluctance to pay for additional legal fees has served Mkhwebane’s cause in helping persuade her people that this inquiry is one of flagrant “CR17” aggression against her personally and those opposed to Ramaphosa’s mode of operation in amassing power and dispensing patronage in general.
In addition, the credibility-deficit costs imposed on Ramaphosa’s administration have been stark – to the extent of weakening the ANC alliance behind anti-corruption.
Nyembezi is a policy analyst, researcher and human rights activist
Cape Times