Deputy Public Protector advocate Kholeka Gcaleka. Picture Screen grab
FACED with public pressure to release the report into the Phala Phala farm theft implicating President Cyril Ramaphosa, Acting Public Protector Kholeka Gcaleka has come out to make claims that she is being treated unfairly when compared to her predecessors.
As pressure on her mounts to produce answers to the list of 31 questions drafted by suspended Public Protector Busisiwe Mkhwebane before she was sacked by the president, Gcaleka defended herself, denying that she was giving Ramaphosa preferential treatment.
She argued that questions from the Public Protector’s office have never been made public while investigations were ongoing.
Her office was responding on Tuesday to questions sent by the DFA’s sister publication the Daily News probing why her office appeared to be dragging its feet on releasing the report.
Last week, the EFF accused Gcaleka of “unlawful and irrational delays” in releasing her report as prescribed in the Public Protector Act which states that the report must be issued in 30 days, which “leaves much to be desired”.
“The acting public protector is unfairly being held to standards that advocate Mushwana, Professor Madonsela and advocate Mkhwebane were not held to. Those accusing the PPSA of dragging its feet must be challenged to provide just one example of an Executive Members’ Ethics Act investigation which was concluded in a month,” the the Public Protector’s office stated.
“Comparable investigations involving heads of state such as Nkandla, State Capture and Bosasa took over two years, seven months (plus four years at the Zondo Commission) and eight months respectively.
“The PPSA was not exposed to undue pressure to conclude any of those matters in a month because it was always understood that Section 3(3) of the Executive Members’ Ethics Act provides that if the public protector reports at the end of the 30-day period that the investigation is incomplete, another report must be submitted upon completion of the investigation. The first report (that the investigation is incomplete) was already submitted to the Speaker of the National Assembly in July.”
Asked about the alleged letter from Gcaleka’s office which appeared to have been sent to Ramaphosa’s office instructing Mkhwebane not to return to work after the court ruled in her favour invalidating her suspension, PPSA spokesperson Oupa Segalwe said that recently some “unscrupulous people have been leaking confidential correspondence involving the PPSA”.
“The letter in question surfaced on social media after being leaked and a lot of people downloaded it from social media sites and republished it on their own platforms. That does not make such people the authors of the letter. Accordingly, any suggestion that people other than members of the PPSA drafted the letter is false and must be rejected with contempt.”
Segalwe said Gcaleka was responding to a message received from Mkhwebane informing her of her return to work.
“Nowhere in the letter did she say to the public protector she may not return to work. All she did was underscore the fact that the PPSA received court papers indicating that one of the parties in the case decided by the Western Cape High Court on Friday launched an appeal bid against the judgment concerned and that the appeal automatically suspended the operation of the impugned order.
“The letter was also meant to assure the public protector that the office would keep its undertaking to, within reason, pay for the legal costs associated with the challenge of her suspension.”
Last week, a full Bench of the Western Cape High Court set aside Ramaphosa’s suspension of Mkhwebane asserting that it would be a reasonable perception that the president was not of impartial mind when he suspended the public protector.
Ramaphosa suspended Mkhwebane within 24 hours after she sent him a list of 31 questions to answer about the Phala Phala scandal.
The court found, from an objective point of view, that Mkhwebane’s decision to investigate Ramaphosa and send him the questions, “prompted the president not to wait a day more and to immediately suspend her”.
The DA wasted no time and immediately appealed the decision with Mkhwebane’s lawyers saying their reading of the order “is legally flawed” and that their client viewed it “as an act of vindictive desperation”.
Law expert and professor of law at the Unisa, Isaac Shai, weighed in on the appeal saying there was a “manufactured analysis and interpretation of the law” by those who appeared not to be objective.
“It is worrying that a person who studied communications is given a title of ‘legal specialist or law expert’ and given a platform to mislead the public. Depending on who the litigants are, different interpretations are provided undermining the Constitution of this country. What we are seeing on TV is worrying,” said Shai.