By Kgomotso Modise.
Public Protector Busisiwe Mkhwebane made a brief appearance in the Pretoria Magistrates Court on Friday on charges of perjury.
Mkhwebane was charged with three counts of perjury in relation to her 2017 Reserve Bank report, which the Constitutional Court set aside, saying that she acted in bad faith.
The apex court also found that Mkhwebane lied and made misrepresentations under oath.
Bankorp received financial assistance from the SA Reserve Bank between 1985 and 1995, as it was about to collapse due to mounting bad debts, according to Absa.
Absa acquired Bankorp on 1 April 1992, while the SARB’s assistance was still continuing.
The bank stated that Bankorp’s collapse would have resulted in depositors losing their money. It further stated that when Absa acquired Bankorp in 1992, the assistance programme was already in place.
Mkhwebane released the Bankorp-CIEX report in June 2017. Her findings directed Absa, which took over Bankorp in 1992, to repay R1.125 billion for a lifeboat provided by the SARB during the apartheid era. She called the bailout “an illegal gift”. The SARB and Absa had asked the court to review the report and set it aside.
Mkhwebane has taken her plight to have the charges withdrawn to the High Court.
After hours of testimony in Parliament this week for her impeachment inquiry, Mkhwebane stood in the dock in the Pretoria Magistrates Court on Friday morning for her ongoing perjury case.
The State charged Mkhwebane with three counts of the crime but one of those has since been withdrawn.
Accountability Now, which initially laid criminal charges of perjury and defeating the ends of justice against Mkhwebane, welcomed movement in the case and said it was “long overdue”.
Now the suspended Public Protector has approached the Pretoria High Court for the two remaining counts to be withdrawn.
On Friday, Mkhwebane’s lawyer Tiny Seboko told the court that they had approached the State to have the matter currently before the magistrate’s court struck off the roll, pending their application in the high court but the State has refused.
Seboko has requested a lengthy adjournment in order to allow for the High Court process to unfold.
The matter has been postponed and Mkhwebane will return to the magistrate’s court on 26 October, just over a week after her seven-year term comes to an end.