Former public protector Thuli Madonsela has broken her silence on the conduct of her successor Busisiwe Mkhwebane, denying that she had also revealed confidential aspects of her investigations to the public.
Mkhwebane took to social media last week to announce that public enterprises minister Pravin Gordhan was implicated in her probe into the so-called rogue unit at the SA Revenue Service. She also took to social media to announce that her investigation of President Cyril Ramaphosa over a donation from the CEO of the disgraced company Bosasa was at an advanced stage, though falling short of confirming that she had served the president with a similar notice.
Usually those who are implicated in probes by the public protector are offered an opportunity to respond before findings are made public.
Mkhwebane’s office said last week that it had disclosed her findings against Gordhan to counter what it called the minister’s own media campaign against her. She denied charges by Gordhan’s lawyers that her actions were unprecedented, and said Madonsela had done the same in her investigation into upgrades at former president Jacob Zuma’s home in Nkandla.
Madonsela insisted that there is no precedent from her time in office that would justify such an approach, and questioned why Mkhwebane had released nearly 100 reports before, without announcing that any parties had been implicated, and then — in the Gordhan matter — "justified it on my nonexistent precedent instead of her own".
She told Business Day that while her office did announce that provisional reports on her investigations had been issued, it never announced so-called section 7(9) notices.
"A provisional report might have intended exculpatory findings or adverse findings," Madonsela said. "When the media asked my office if anyone was implicated, we’d say it’s confidential."
This, she said, was to protect the integrity of the investigation process.
"It may be that an implicated person provides us with evidence that exonerates him or her. Should that happen, we would not want their reputation to be unfairly besmirched through us identifying them as implicated.
"Nor would we want the public to be left with the impression that we had succumbed to political pressure and wrongfully exonerated the implicated person."
On Sunday, Mkhwebane’s office issued a statement in response to a report in the Sunday Independent that she had found against Ramaphosa in the Bosasa probe.
"Contents of notices issued by the public protector in terms of 7(9) of the Public Protector Act or any document before the public protector as part of an ongoing investigation are strictly confidential," it said.
DA leader Mmusi Maimane criticised Mkhwebane over her response to his request to be provided with her unredacted report on whether Ramaphosa deliberately lied to parliament over a R500,000 contribution from Bosasa CEO Gavin Watson towards his ANC leadership campaign.
In a letter sent last week, Mkhwebane hit back at Maimane for accusing her of
not properly investigating the Gupta-linked Vrede Dairy Project scandal, one of several reports that have been set aside by the courts, raising questions about her competence and suitability for the job. The DA wants to bring a motion to parliament on her fitness to hold office.
Mkhwebane told Maimane in the letter that she would still
be around to release the Ramaphosa report, "unless you succeed in your party’s motion to have me removed".
Mkhwebane’s spokesperson, Oupa Segalwe, said on Sunday that nothing untoward should be read into the letter.
"She has for a while been asking for space from Mr Maimane, who was pressur-
ising her to release her report before the elections, to conclude the investigation."
Maimane told Business Day that Mkhwebane "has shown profound disregard of the duties of her office as guided by the constitution and law".
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