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The North Gauteng High court has today set aside the Public Protector’s, Busisiwe Mkhwebane’s, Bankorp-CIEX report, in which she found that ABSA should repay R1.1 billion.

In a devastating judgement for Ms Mkhwebane, she has been ordered to personally pay 15% of the costs, the other 85% to be paid by her office, yet another unnecessary waste of the taxpayer’s money.

This is not the first time she has wasted precious resources on frivolous court applications. Since her appointment, she’s wastefully incurred legal costs including:

• In July 2017, when she withdrew her opposition to an urgent application to set aside her remedial action amending the Constitution; and
• In February 2017, when she opposed President Jacob Zuma’s review application “merely to comply with the court rules” while still seeking a legal opinion – she only decided to commit to opposing the application in June.

By all accounts, Mkhwebane is utterly ineffectual and dangerously out of touch with her mandate as Public Protector.

The DA has always maintained that she is not suitable to head up the Office of the Public Protector, as a crucial institution in the fight against injustice and corruption.

This latest scathing judgment against her is more proof that she should be immediately removed. It also constitutes a scathing indictment of the ANC members of the Justice Portfolio Committee, who on the same grounds found by the court today, refused to consider our request to remove her.

The ANC instead chose to protect her in line with a thinly disguised party line.

Issued by DA