COSATU condemns Mkhwebane’s use of the legal process to gain undeserved payout
19 August 2024
The Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU) is dumbfounded by Advocate Busisiwe Mkhwebane’s court bid to force her former office to pay her a R10 million gratuity even though she was removed from office.
Former Public Protector Mkhwebane was the first head of a Chapter 9 institution to be impeached, when she was removed from office for incompetence and misconduct in September 2023. The National Assembly voted overwhelmingly in support of her removal.
Soon after her impeachment, Mkhwebane was sworn-in as an EFF Member of Parliament, but like a boomerang she is back in court demanding the R10 million gratuity paid to public protectors at the end of their term since 2005. What the erstwhile Public Protector is misconstruing is that a gratuity is a token of appreciation, and it is not paid to individuals found unfit to occupy the office and effectively fired.
Mkhwebane might disagree, but she was found by Parliament to have been so bad at her job that she needed to be relieved of her duties a mere month before her term expired.