Cape Town - The conduct of the evidence leader in the Parliamentary enquiry into suspended Public Protector Busisiwe Mkhwebane’s fitness to hold office has once again come under scrutiny – this time advocate Nazreen Bawa SC being accused of “perpetuating a stereotype against black people”.
Bawa last week led evidence, publishing what she claimed was the public protector’s legal fees that were the subject of testimony.
These fees included large amounts of money being paid mostly to black firms and legal representatives.
Addressing the committee on Thursday, advocate Muzi Sikhakhane SC, who took issue with his name being flashed out during Bawa’s presentation, accused her of being selective in highlighting the fees of black advocates, while white advocates were paid the same amounts or more under the previous public protector, Thuli Madonsela.
He added “accountability for public funds could have been done without flighting our names without telling the public that money was funnelled”.
“We reject Ms Bawa’s intended theory to portray black professionals as corrupt. We support the call for accountability because it’s public funds we are dealing with but we reject the notion of perpetuating a stereotype against black people, to project that the figures that were put up were simply funnelled to us by advocate Mkwebane,” Sikhakhane said.
“The manner and supposed evidence of PPs’ expenditure on legal fees, consistent with the most common mischief, Ms Bawa knowingly brandished our names and without any context to the public, read out alarming figures of monies we were supposed to have made, almost giving the impression we were looting our system.
“She knows that the counsel submit their fee notes to instructing attorneys for services actually rendered.”
Bawa conceded that some of the figures were incorrectly allocated and she apologised for this. However, she denied the racism allegations or the impression that evidence leaders may have tried to shield white advocates.
“There was no omission on the basis of race on the list. We have not been involved in an orchestration. We endeavoured to account to the committee. We did leave out some advocates that rendered services in the 2017/2018 period.
For accusations of racism and the sake of completeness, we included them. They rendered some legal services.
“Of the eight, seven are black practitioners. So, to the extent that advocate (Dali) Mpofu (SC) accused us of targeting black practitioners in the way the evidence was led, seven were black practitioners. We have not been involved in an orchestration to come out with any sort of nefarious motive,” she said.
It was not the first time Bawa’s conduct came under the spotlight. She recently refused, with the support of the majority of MPs on the committee, to recuse herself after UDM leader Bantu Holomisa and attorney Godrich Gardee, acting on behalf of the chairperson of Black People’s National Crisis Committee Chumani Maxwele, lodged complaints with committee chair, Qubudile Dyantyi, against her.
Bawa maintained her innocence and denied the allegations against her.
In his letter, Holomisa said that it had come to the attention of the UDM that Bawa was implicated in legal proceedings that called her conduct into question. He did not divulge what the allegations were, other than referring Dyantyi to start reading a 400-odd page affidavit.
In a separate letter, Gardee said his client, activist Maxwele, was aware of proceedings in the Western Cape High Court where allegations were made against Bawa in June 2020, but were not substantively addressed by the Legal Practice Council and the Cape Bar Council.
He said the records relating to Bawa’s alleged misconduct were before the high court and had been resubmitted to both the Legal Practice Council and Cape Bar Council.
Cape Times