Cape Town - An employee in the Office of the Public Protector explained on Wednesday why he asked Parliament to probe Public Protector Busisiwe Mkhwebane two years ago.
Testifying during the inquiry into the fitness of Mkhwebane to hold office, Free State representative Sphelo Samuel confirmed deposing an affidavit to National Assembly Speaker Nosiviwe Mapisa-Nqakula in February 2020.
Samuel said he had asked for an investigation to probe the conduct of Mkhwebane and her office after he made enquiries about the institution getting more litigation and other programmes suffering as a result.
He also said Mkhwebane had in a television interview claimed not to be responsible for the expenditure incurred and blamed it on the accounting officer because she was not involved.
Samuel said when no response was forthcoming from Parliament, he wrote to then acting CEO enquiring about the litigation and related costs, among others.
He later addressed another letter to Mkhwebane, asking her to resign following a scathing judgement about her conduct.
Samuel said however he never received responses and instead was slapped with disciplinary charges a few days later.
“What happened is that when I got to the office and tried to log into the server, I had been blocked. I made enquiries to the CEO as to why I was logged out.”
Samuel claims he also complained about constructive dismissal, and was thereafter served with a suspension notice and his laptop was taken away.
The disciplinary charges related to the affidavit he deposed to Mapisa-Nqakula asking for an investigation into Mkhwebane’s conduct, conducting interviews and leaking the affidavit to the media, making disparaging remarks against Mkhwebane and insulting her.
Other charges related to breaching the Public Protector Act, breaching internal grievance procedure, breach of confidentiality clause and an assault case from 2009 when he was still the institution’s Limpopo representative.
Samuel told the inquiry that when the disciplinary hearing first sat during hard lockdown period, evidence as led but was not finished and the hearing was postponed.
During the second sitting in October 2020, the presiding officer refused to grant him a postponement when he was infected with Covid-19 and he was found guilty in absentia on five of the nine charges.
The CCMA has since reinstated him to his position and he has returned to work on July 4.
During his earlier testimony, Samuel claimed that Mkhwebane refused to authorise subpoenas against former Free State premier Ace Magashule and former Agriculture MEC Mosebenzi Zwane during the investigation into the Vrede Dairy farm project.
The investigation was sparked by a complaint from DA MPL following an investigation by the National Treasury, which found procurement irregularities and recommended disciplinary action against officials.
When former public protector Thuli Madonsela started the investigation, she issued an unsigned provisional report in November 2014.
Samuel told the inquiry that Mkhwebane had required a draft report in preparation for a visit to Vrede, which was to take place in April 2017.
He said the report had not reflected the changes Madonsela wanted to include the role of politicians in the farm project.
“For us it was a draft and did not incorporate concerns of the previous public protector.”
Samuel also said although he revised the report and made findings against Magashule and Zwane, these were left out of the final report released in February 2018.
“In that report I disobeyed the directive from Public Protector that we should not make findings against politicians. I felt strongly that they were responsible for the project and findings had to be made against them.”
He said he had based his conclusions based on evidence they discovered from a number of sources.
Samuel also challenged some of the observations in the report that made excuses for not making certain findings on the basis that the investigation experienced capacity and financial constraints.
The inquiry continues on Tuesday with Samuel being cross- examined by Mkhwebane’s legal counsel Advocate Dali Mpofu.
Cape Times