Cape Town - The inquiry into the fitness of Public Protector Busisiwe Mkhwebane to hold office was delayed yet again on Monday after her legal team was not paid its outstanding legal fees.
Appearing before the committee, Mkhwebane said the team would not consult with Public Protector South Africa (PPSA) investigator Bianca Mvuyana, whose appearance was postponed on Monday until they were paid.
“It is not a protest ... The thing is they cannot work when they are not paid,” Mkhwebane said.
She was responding to committee chairperson Qubudile Dyantyi after he gave her legal team between Monday’s meeting and Tuesday to consult with Mvuyana.
It emerged at the meeting that there were still legal fees to be paid to her counsel by PPSA and her team had difficulties interacting with Mvuyana last week.
Briefing the committee earlier, parliamentary legal adviser Fatima Ebrahim took the committee through correspondence from Mkhwebane dating to January 31.
Ebrahim said the PPSA had informed them that there were discrepancies in the invoices, which were being verified before payments could be made.
“The invoices in contention are the ones submitted in December for work done in August and a set for juniors until December 6.”
Ebrahim also said that they had made contact with Mvuyana, who then made contact with Mkhwebane’s legal team on Thursday.
But Mkhwebane’s legal counsel, advocate Dali Mpofu, told evidence leader Nazreen Bawa on Saturday that they were not in a position to proceed with the inquiry as they were not given an instruction.
“We have not received correspondence or application for adjournment until after 9 this morning on the issue of payment,” she said in reference to a letter Mkhwebane wrote to the committee.
In her letter, Mkhwebane said her legal team was eventually paid on Saturday about 70% of the fees owed to them by PPSA after she indicated their non-availability until all payments were made to their satisfaction.
“The now outstanding 30% balance is apparently made up of, firstly, the items which are the subject of baseless disputes raised by PPSA and secondly, a remainder whose non-payment has simply not been explained.
“If, as I suspect, the real reason for the failure to pay in full is the temporary unavailability of funds, then PPSA must come clean and say so instead of falsely seeking to apportion blame to my legal team,” she wrote.
Mkhwebane told the inquiry that her legal team spent the December holidays without payment.
“This is done by the institution that is investigating maladministration and undue delays.”
She also said PPSA should have raised queries with the invoices within a week of being submitted rather than weeks or months later.
Mkhwebane decried that PPSA paid legal firms that represented the institution in court cases they were not supposed to be represented in.
“I don’t know why that is done to punish me further. You find that other legal teams are being paid,” she said.
“The same issues resolved in respect of counsel are being reinvoked to justify the present delays,” Mkhwebane said.
After some discussion by the committee and questions posed to Mvuyana as well as a letter received from PPSA, while the meeting was under way, Dyantyi said the hearings would continue on Wednesday and Thursday with testimony by Mvuyana and former public protector advocate Kevin Malunga on Friday.
They would ask Mkhwebane’s legal team to interact with Mvuyana so that she testifies on Wednesday morning.
Dyantyi also said the commitments made in writing by PPSA would be attended to.
“Out of engagements, it is to ensure that everything is done legally within prescripts," he said.
"We are not to force the hand of the public protector to do things outside prescripts. We have no power or mandate to do that,” Dyantyi added.
Mkhwebane urged that her legal team be paid because come Wednesday or Thursday, “I don’t have a legal team and unfortunately, honourable Hendricks, legal representation is a constitutional right, which has been provided by the Constitutional Court.”
Cape Times