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.

Whereas her predecessor, Professor Thuli Madonsela, released reports whose ramifications are still being felt, such as the Reports into State of Capture, Maladministration at PRASA and Nkandla.  Mkhwebane’s reports are memorable for all the wrong reasons and were repeatedly contested and set aside by court reviews for shoddy drafting, dubious legality and at times factional antics.  Parliament found her conduct to be biased and not independent as expected of someone in her office.

For Mkhwebane to seek legal recourse after she unashamedly distorted reports to suit specific outcomes takes a special breed of temerity. It is characteristic of the decade of State Capture, where the architects used state institutions to achieve their own unprincipled goals.

COSATU condemns Mkhwebane’s attempts to default the state of funds she is not entitled to and urges the courts to dismiss her spurious case with costs. The state cannot afford to indulge this attempt at extortion when critical nursing, teaching and police vacancies exist.

The National Prosecuting Authority must fast track the prosecution of those implicated in State Capture, so the nation can put that unscrupulous era behind it once and for all. 

Issued by Zanele Sabela, National Spokesperson, COSATU, 19 August 2024