Cape Town - The Section 194 hearings into suspended Public Protector Busisiwe Mkwhebane’s fitness to hold office will continue today with former public protector CEO Vussy Mahlangu scheduled to answer questions.
This follows the questioning of the office’s Free State head Sphelo Samuel, who went through three days of interrogation which saw him being accused of being a disgruntled employee, a liar, a sexist and a perjurer – all of which he disputed.
In proceeding with the cross-examination, Mpofu attempted to establish that Samuels had been biased against Mkhwebane and made an unfair comparison between her and her predecessor, Thuli Madonsela.
He further attempted to establish that an unfair criticism had been levelled against Mkhwebane due to the number of matters handled by her office being lost in court.
Mpofu put it to Samuels: “Your theory on so-called reckless litigation... is that because there is noise that happens after the case is lost, that might have an impact on the image on the institution.
“Would you agree that that approach is unfair because it is based on what happens expos facto, in other words the reaction of people once the judgment has been given.
“You can’t blame the person who initiated the litigation as if they knew that two years down the line there would be some choreographed reaction of the media.
“To that extent your so-called theory of reckless litigation is flawed because it is backward-looking,” Mpofu said.
In clarifying, Samuel said: “My evidence is that in considering whether or not to launch or to defend any particular litigation, one would have to look at the prospects of success, among other things, and perhaps to go further in our situation on whether or not this was going to improve the jurisprudence of the office in the sense that since our inception there had not been many cases.
“So that is not an issue that can be disregarded before the litigation is launched ... it is not entirely true to say that it cannot be determined expos facto that is also in a sense... exactly the reaction or the failure to take those issues into account that would be the spin-off of that litigation,” Samuel said.
Mpofu further accused Samuels of lying under oath after claiming that he pre-empted the current committee hearings in an SABC interview he did after he deposed an affidavit accusing Mkhwebane of being inadequate.
Samuel, in defending himself, explained that at the time he was not aware of the process that would follow and had limited knowledge of the parliamentary process.
He said that he only knew that he was reporting to a portfolio committee.