Thread by @twieterazzi

The evil de-campaigning of the public protector. A class perspective

[A thread]

In October 2016, Adv Busisiwe Mkhwebane was appointed Public Protector of South Africa, an Ombudsman role established in terms of Chapter 9 of the Constitution of SA.

Adv. Mkhwebane was amongst 78 formal & 3 verbal nominees like Judge Moseneke, Prof Pierre De Vos, President Thabo Mbeki, Judge Desai, Philip Dexter, Mamodupi Mohlala, Adv. Gerrie Nel, Nhlanhla Nene, Adv. Willie Hofmeyr and Graca Machel.

She was shortlisted amongst 5 others

DA MPs Werner Horn and Glynnis Breytenbach made startling claims that PP Mkhwebane was not fit for office because she was a spy and prompted her to decline the nomination for public protector.

The PP denounced these allegations and took the DA to court for defamation.

Before we turn to the defamation court case perhaps we should pause and refer to the genesis of all problems, the ABSA lifeboat investigation where BANKCORP a former subsidiary of ABSA is accused of having received loans from the Apartheid reserve bank it never paid back.

It is common cause that Bankorp (now ABSA) received benefits of R 1.125 billion through the lifeboat loan that was afforded by the SARB through bailouts.

Prior to the PP, Judges Davis & Heath independently found that the Bankorp lifeboat transactions had been unlawful.

Quite fascinatingly Judge Heath found that even though the bailout was illegal, it would be expensive and "DANGEROUS" to recover the money.

it is clear that PP Mkhwebane didn't heed the "danger" caution when in her report she required that the lifeboat be repaid by ABSA.

In Nov 2010, one Paul Hoffman a Director for Institute for Accountability in Southern Africa was clearly unhappy with the 1999 & 2002 investigations by judges Willem Heath and Dennis Davis – who independently investigated the “lifeboats” respectively.

He lodged a PP complaint.

The complaint was lodged with the now Prof of Stellenbosch University @ThuliMadonsela3 who served as public protector between Oct 2009 & Oct 2016.

Prof Madonsela failed to finalise the investigation on the CIEX/ABSA LIFEBOAT. She ultimately rushed the State Capture investigation

When @AdvBMkhwebane arrived at the @PublicProtector the CIEX investigation was one of the outstanding investigations that she had to finalise.

Some commentators opined that PP @ThuliMadonsela3 avoided finalising this investigation because it would upset the applecart.

I still remember when the PP issued the Absa Lifeboat Report & before even reading it, I allowed the media to infuse into my head the idea that the PP was not only incompetent but corrupt. And that was the PP @AdvBMkhwebane original sin which brought us here today.

I remember making noise that @AdvBMkhwebane didn't have power to instruct parliament to amend the SARB Act. I had forgotten that PP @ThuliMadonsela3 had instructed President Zuma to establish a commission of inquiry & Head of the Judiciary to select a presiding Judge. I was naive

Ultimately as we all know, it was private capital that won the day. ABSA didn't pay a cent of that illegally loaned money. Private capital supported by Petit bourgeoisie in SARB & National Treasury would teach the PP a lesson never to tinker with their hegemony of private capital

The ConCourt would be the genesis of all of PP's problems when they arbitrarily found that the PP should have never met the president. Their procedural nonsense which had nothing to do with merits of the final PP report effectively ensured that ABSA does not pay back the money.

The ConCourt Judgement was written by none other than Justice Khampepe who, as we are now aware, was in the 1980s part of the LRC which at its foundation was funded by the BIG Three: Ford Foundation, Carnegie and the Rockerfellers.

Recently a comrade in the US questioned my very consciousness in regard to the current PP. Was the PP not putting at the people’s disposal the intellectual & technical capital she has & using her office to achieve revolutionary fervour?

Could it be that the PP refused to choose the anti-national path, one that is stupidly, contemptibly, cynically bourgeois & now she is paying for this and lacks defence from those that ought to be at the forefront of the class struggle? I mean why is she being persecuted?

Ultimately the question that every comrade that is worth their salt should ask is whether the blind critique, hatred and attack of @AdvBMkhwebane over the unpaid Absa loan report was not effective class suicide.

Were we duped by the media and Lesetja Kganyago?

If the previous PP could instruct a sitting president 2 establish a commission of inquiry, & further instruct Chief Justice Mogoeng to select a judge to lead the inquiry, what stopped the current PP to instruct parliament to amend the SARB Act? Is there perhaps an invisible hand?

It could well be that we are busy defending the nonsense Thuma Mina petit bourgeoisie that are getting rich at our expense while attacking those waging a class struggle. It cannot be a coincidence that post-94 South Africa remains the most unequal society in the world.

Have we allowed ourselves to blindly maintain this inequality through the unquestioning following of white media sound-bytes?

Are we responsible for the current political unrests because we committed class suicide?

In Dec 2020, the high court in Pretoria struck out paragraphs of Gordhan's affidavit where he accused the PP of being corrupt, illiterate, rogue, incompetent, irrational & unfit. It found allegations did not belong in court papers of a “self-respecting member of the executive”.

Dec 2020 again the ConCourt would make a seminal judgement where it warned judges in the Pretoria high Court of making automatic personal cost orders against @AdvBMkhwebane
The ConCourt cautioned the judges of weakening the office of @PublicProtector as it is NB for democracy

I know many of u have been contaminated by perhaps @MarianneThamm @StephenGrootes @PLMyburgh @PieterDuToit & the rest of the commentariat into hating @AdvBMkhwebane

But why has ABSA not paid back the lifeboat money after Judges Heath & Davis said the loans were illegal?

Today we find ourself in a situation where between Oct 2016 & Feb 2021 the @PublicProtector has finalised over 52,000 of the so-called Gogo Dlamini cases.

In addition, 274 investigation reports have been released, 14 of these set aside by courts whilst 8 defended successfully.

So despite Paul Hoffman having complained about Absa lifeboat to the PP and being distraught by the conclusions of Judges Heath and Davis, why do you think he's today leading the charge against the destruction of @AdvBMkhwebane

Is he perhaps just evil or there is a third force?

So now that the PP report has been set aside, is it possible that Human Rights Commission, another Chapter 9 institution could find that the non payment of the Absa lifeboat was tantamount to abuse of the human rights of South Africans?

Can the ConCourt judgement be rescinded?

What is really annoying in all of this is that the public protector is having to defend he competence because she found against some "untouchable politicians" but most importantly she dared insisted that ABSA must pay back the money.

Every time when @AdvBMkhwebane is being persecuted, I am often reminded of her words she she said:

“I will go to the king, even though it is against the law; and if I perish, I perish.”

That day the PP declared her class interests and associated with the poor & downtrodden

We must not forget that under cross examination at the State Capture inquiry, Minister Gordhan who had accused the PP of being part of a fight back campaign against the Thuma Mina government of #CR17BankStatements had to retract those allegations.

The alleged dots didn't connect

Now back to the DA's spy allegations.

The PP sued the DA's Breytenbach & her party for defamation, after they accused her of being a spy.
In 2019, the High Court dismissed the DA's application to force Mkhwebane to hand over her SSA employment records.

The DA appealed at the SCA.

Under normal circumstances, the cardinal principle of the law is that “he who alleges must prove.”

However in the case of Mkhwebane, the SCA would extraordinarily overturn the High Court judgement insisting that the PP must prove the DA's allegations

The extraordinary SCA judgement was penned by none other that Judge Navsa. Between 1981 & 1994 he worked at the Legal Resources Centre.

During that time he would have worked there with prominent lawyers and jurists like Judges Mlambo, Kriegler and Khampepe.