Pretoria - The case against suspended Public Protector Advocate Busisiwe Mkhwebane proceeded briefly in the Pretoria Magistrate’s Court, where she stands accused of three charges of perjury, yesterday.
The case had to be postponed to allow the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) to make a final decision on her representation.
Mkhwebane was not asked to plead to the charges because the decision of Gauteng Director of Public Prosecutions, Andrew Chauke, on her representation is still pending.
Yesterday, the NPA indicated that it would furnish Mkhwebane with its decision next week.
Her legal team was considering making the same representation to the National Director of Public Prosecutions, Advocate Shamila Batohi. The case was postponed to December 9.
NPA spokesperson Lumka Mahanjana said the postponement was granted to allow the prosecutorial authority to complete its judicial review of the charges against Mkhwebane.
The case against her was opened by non-profit organisation Accountability Now in August 2019. But Chauke only decided to prosecute her for perjury in December 2020.
He said that he took a decision after he had carefully assessed the evidence presented to him by the Hawks, saying it was in line with their prosecution policy and the law.
At the time, the Hawks said that they had received a summons, but did not name the public protector and stated that the “incumbent” was served with a summons and was set to appear in the Pretoria Magistrate’s Court on January 21 last year.
The Hawks investigations began after anti-corruption pressure group Accountability Now laid criminal charges of perjury and defeating the ends of justice following the findings of the Constitutional Court.
The Concourt upheld the February 2018 Gauteng High Court, Pretoria, ruling that Mkhwebane must pay 15% of the Reserve Bank’s legal fees in the Absa/Bankorp review case.
It agreed with a lower court ruling that her entire Absa/Bankorp investigation was flawed, and that she was not honest during the process.
The public protector, in a report published on June 19, 2017, had tasked the Special Investigating Unit with recovering R1.125 billion in “misappropriated public funds”, describing the funds as an "illegal gift" given to Bankorp by the SA Reserve Bank in the 1980s.
Since Bankorp and other banks were later absorbed into Absa, Mkhwebane ruled that the funds be recovered from Absa.
Following the publication of her report, the central bank, the minister of finance, Absa and the National Treasury instituted review applications to set aside her directive that the SIU recover funds from Absa. The applications were later consolidated.
The Gauteng High Court, Pretoria, set aside Mkhwebane’s findings, citing a “reasonable apprehension of bias” in her work. That court found she had acted in bad faith and put forward a “number of falsehoods” during the litigation.
Pretoria News