Cape Town - Former COO in the Office of the Public Protector Basani Baloyi stuck to her guns on Monday that she was purged from the Chapter Nine institution two years ago.
Giving evidence to the Section 194 committee, Baloyi said she had disagreements with Public Protector Busisiwe Mkhwebane and former CEO Vussy Mahlangu.
She said she was seen as a stumbling block and Mahlangu had warned that he was going to ‘get her’.
“I don’t believe I was purged. I was purged,” she said.
When Mkhwebane’s legal counsel Dali Mpofu said other people don’t believe her assertion, she stood her ground.
“The manner I had been treated and subjected to and the circumstances, I still stand that I was purged,” Baloyi said.
Baloyi, who joined the Public Protector South Africa in February 2019, was fired while on probation in October of the same year after being asked to make representation on why her employment should be confirmed.
She said she never had weekly meetings to discuss her performance and was not alerted to deficiencies.
Baloyi also said investigators were given unreasonable targets to wipe out backlog cases.
“There was a concerted effort to pressurise us that work could be done,” she said.
She told of being instructed to take action against executive managers who did not meet deadlines
“I was instructed to take corrective action against the managers.”
Baloyi said Mahlangu had interfered in an investigation into executive ethics involving former agriculture minister Gugile Nkwinti.
She also said she was removed from the CR17 investigation and that former Bosasa boss Gavin Watson had in an interview said he not only donated to the CR17 campaign but to the NDZ campaign as well.
“Yet the public protector refused to investigate the allegation about donations to the NDZ campaign despite the fact that Mr Watson indicated that there were many donors who fund political parties,” she wrote in her affidavit.
She also said an investigation into the Independent Police Investigating Directorate contained procurement and appointment complaints, but ended up focusing on the directorate’s head, Robert McBride.
“She said McBride is likely to be nominated to be a deputy public protector and we needed to eliminate him from the system.”
“This thing was no longer about investigation, but it was about something else,” Baloyi said.
She said Mkhwebane’s leadership style was authoritarian.
“She must be addressed as Madam. She must be bowed down to quite literally. Her style of leadership was characterised by inflexibility, irrationality and a failure or refusal to treat her staff with dignity and respect,” she said.
“When the public protector walked from her office to the boardroom, we had to rise, which I found an anomaly. Most of the ministers and MECs do not do that.”
Baloyi accused Mkhwebane of involving herself in operational matters of the office.
“It was an executive authority that was operating at a very low level which was detrimental to reporting structures.”
She told the MPs of instances when people were refused leave and that Mkhwebane sent her a text message on work-related issues while her daughter was hospitalised.
“If you submitted all these on time, such an emergency would not portray one as insensitive. Will be taking action against CEO for your failure to meet deadline,” read the text message.
Mpofu said Baloyi’s evidence was irrelevant to the work of the committee but she said she was assisting it to do its work.
“I am going at the end to demonstrate that your answers to this issue are a complete fabrication and untruthful, and that you are tailoring your evidence as you go along because you have been caught in a lie,” Mpofu said.
He pointed out some contradictions in her oral testimony and affidavits, saying Baloyi was misleading the committee.
Mpofu said Baloyi was not assisting the committee by feeding it with lies.
“It is doing disservice to the committee,” he said.
Cape Times