JAUNDICED EYE
For once, everyone seems to agree. A slew of court rulings against the Public Protector has demonstrated, in humiliatingly scathing judicial assessments, her unfitness for office.
The only thing at issue is a credible explanation for Busisiwe Mkhwebane’s hopelessly flawed rulings. Do they stem from stupidity and ignorance or are they the calculated outcome of her political allegiance to the embattled Zuma/Gupta faction of the African National Congress that placed her in the job?
This week, following an application by the Democratic Alliance and the Council for the Advancement of the South African Constitution, High Court Judge Ronel Tolmay issued her judgment on Mkhwebane’s report on her investigation into the Vrede Dairy Farm Project. The Gupta-linked project saw the theft of around R220m of funds intended to set up black farmers.
It's a searingly critical judgment. Tolmay writes that Mkhwebane’s failures and omissions in the investigation were inexplicable unless they were done with “some ulterior purpose”. There was either “a blatant disregard” by Mkhwebane of her constitutional duties or a “concerning lack of understanding” of them. This failure to understand the law and the South African Constitution pointed either to “ineptitude or gross negligence”.
Tolmay’s judgment is worth reading, alone, for its tone of barely contained judicial impatience. But with due respect to Tolmay, the question is not whether Mkhwebane is simply useless or whether she is a political tool. It is possible, and on the evidence likely, that she is both.