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Attorney Busisiwe Mkhwebane.
- Public protector Busisiwe Mkhwebane says she will cooperate and appear in court in January.
- This as Gauteng’s DPP decided to prosecute after the civil society group Accountability Now filed perjury charges against her in August 2019.
- She will appear in court in January 2021.
Public protector Busisiwe Mkhwebane says she is confident the court will acquit her of any wrongdoing in her perjury case.
Mkhwebane received a summons to appear before the Pretoria Magistrates Court to face charges of perjury.
The case was opened by the nonprofit Accountability Now in August 2019.
Mkhwebane said that as a law abiding citizen, she would cooperate and appear in court on January 21.
She added that she was confident that the court would absolve her of any wrongdoing.
According to a statement released on Friday, Mkhwebane said he “learned through media reports that [Advocate] [Paul] Hoffman SC has now written to President Cyril Ramaphosa, asking him to suspend it. ”
On Tuesday, the director of the Gauteng Public Prosecutor’s Office decided to prosecute Mkhwebane for perjury, said NPA spokesman Sipho Ngwema.
Decision
“The NPA wishes to confirm that the DPP did in fact make the decision to prosecute after carefully evaluating the evidence presented by the Hawks. This is in line with prosecution policy and the law,” he said.
The NPA comment followed the leak of a subpoena, indictment and private correspondence between the Director of the Pretoria Public Ministry and the investigation team.
The Hawks said in a statement Tuesday that they had received a subpoena, but did not name the Public Protector and stated that the “holder” received a subpoena and was due to appear in court in January.
“The citation contains three counts of perjury. [Hawks] he will not be involved in this matter further until the incumbent appears in court, “said spokesman Colonel Katlego Mogale.
READ | Falcons Confirm Inquiry into Public Protector Busisiwe Mkhwebane
News24 previously reported that the Hawks were investigating Mkhwebane after anti-corruption lobby group Accountability Now filed criminal charges of perjury and defeating the ends of justice following Constitutional Court findings.
The Constitutional Court ruling upheld the February 2018 Gauteng High Court decision that Mkhwebane would pay 15% of the Reserve Bank’s legal fees in the Absa / Bankorp review case.
It coincided with a lower court ruling that its entire Absa / Bankorp investigation was flawed and that it was not honest during its investigation.
The Public Protector, in a report published on June 19, 2017, had commissioned the Special Investigation Unit to recover R1.125 billion in “embezzled public funds”, describing the funds as an “illegal gift” given to Bankorp. by the Reserve Bank of South Africa in the 1980s.
Since Bankorp and other banks were later absorbed by Absa, Mkhwebane ruled that the funds be recovered from Absa.
Following the publication of its report, the Central Bank, the Minister of Finance, Absa and the National Treasury have instituted requests for review to overturn their directive that the SIU recover funds from Absa. These applications were later consolidated.
The North Gauteng High Court in Pretoria set aside Mkhwebane’s findings, citing a “… reasonable apprehension of bias” in his work.
That court found that he had acted in bad faith and presented a “series of falsehoods” during the litigation, News24 reported.
READ | ConCourt Maintains Cost Order Against Mkhwebane, Rules She ‘Was Not Honest’ In Absa Investigation
In August 2019, the director of Accountability Now, attorney Paul Hoffman SC, wrote in the Daily Maverick that the imposition of charges was based entirely on the binding findings of the Constitutional Court in the cost dispute between the Reserve Bank and the Public Protector.
