Cape Town - Acting public protector Kholeka Gcaleka told Parliament’s justice portfolio committee that it had finally managed to squeeze R4 million out of a tight budget to fund suspended public protector Busisiwe Mkhwebane’s legal fees at her stalled impeachment inquiry.
Gcaleka, who was accompanied by Office of the Public Protector (PPSA) chief executive Thandi Sibanyoni, had presented the PPSA Annual Performance Plan to the committee when members demanded an update on the impasse over Mkhwebane’s legal fees.
In March the PPSA told the Section 194 committee that it only had enough money to fund Mkhwebane’s legal fees until the end of that month.
It said further legal fees had not been budgeted for.
This left Mkhwebane without legal representation after her lawyers withdrew.
Committee member Wilma Newhoudt-Druchen (ANC) was the first to broach the issue of Mkhwebane’s legal fees while fellow committee member Glynnis Breytenbach (DA) asked whether there was any assistance the portfolio committee could give the PPSA with regard to the legal fees issue.
Gcaleka told the portfolio committee she had written to Speaker Nosiviwe Mapisa-Nqakula, Section 194 committee chairperson Qubudile Dyantyi and Mkhwebane on Tuesday.
In her letter she said the PPSA had made R4m available by dipping into the retained surplus from the 2021/22 financial year
She said: “In the current budget, we do not have any amount really to allocate for these legal fees because we have our own operations to run.
“These have been left to stagnate because we used the money that we had made provision for.”
Gcaleka said they had set out conditions for the R4m as this was money the PPSA as an institution would be held to account for by South Africans.
Sibanyonyi told the meeting that the PPSA had been given permission by the National Treasury to use the funds, which were approved for the 2021/2022 financial year.
“We looked at the budget for the current financial year and we realised that it is not affordable.
“This was because, while we are paying for the public protector’s legal fees, we had to suspend some of the (other) payments that we had to make.”
Meanwhile, Mkhwebane’s seven-year term in office is set to end in October and yesterday Parliament’s presiding officers warned MPs that it was almost time to begin the process for a search for Mkhwebane’s successor.
House chairperson Cedric Frolick said finding a replacement was an urgent and time-consuming matter.
“Because the committee will have to be established after the House agrees to it, must elect the chairperson, it must look at the programme and the advert that must go out. And that in itself takes time.”
The Section 194 committee was set up on March 16, 2021, and was meant to conclude its work by the end of May this year.