By Lehlohonolo Lehana.
ANC secretary-general Ace Magashule has called on his party’s MPs to oppose the process to impeach public protector Busisiwe Mkhwebane, which is due to commence next week.
He told the Sunday Times that “principled” ANC MPs would not vote in support of the motion brought by the DA.
Mkhwebane has a case to answer on counts of misconduct and incompetence. That is the recommendation of the panel of three independent experts to Parliament. It’s now up to the national legislature to run with it.
The EFF’s support for the Public Protector is on public record and its 44 MPs may well vote against establishing an inquiry into her fitness for office.
The ANC is split along factional lines and for more than a year has procrastinated on making a decision on the Public Protector. Or as ANC Deputy Secretary-General Jessie Duarte put it after the first 2020 ANC parliamentary caucus of its 230 MPs in February of that year, “There is a process in place. The ANC has not discussed where we stand, so we can’t give you an answer either way”.
On Monday that moment for a decision finally came; the initial ANC parliamentary caucus response was “No comment”.
The DA has welcomed the independent panel’s recommendations.
“We are pleased by these findings and urge Parliament to institute the removal proceedings against Mkhwebane without delay,” said a statement from DA Chief Whip Natasha Mazzone, who some 14 months ago laid the formal complaint against Mkhwebane.
On Tuesday the Office of the Public Protector said it had noted the independent expert panel’s report to Parliament.
“The report is a pronouncement on the alleged existence of prima facie evidence against the Public Protector and not findings of wrongdoing,” said the official statement.
“The Public Protector is confident that both the parliamentary process and the judicial proceedings, which are before the High Court and the Constitutional Court, will ultimately result in her being cleared of any alleged wrongdoing.”
The independent expert panel report is step four of 17 steps in a Section 194 inquiry, named after the section in the Constitution dealing with the removal from office of the heads of institutions established to support democracy. The last step in such impeachment proceedings would be a vote in the National Assembly on the inquiry committee’s recommendation — a removal recommendation would require the support of a two-thirds majority in the house.
None of the steps in this process has any timeframes or deadlines — it’s possible even if the Section 194 inquiry gets under way, it could be a drawn-out process. Mkhwebane, who became Public Protector in October 2016, has just over two-and-a-half years to go in her seven-year, non-renewable term of office.
If the ANC uses its majority, alongside the EFF, to vote against the independent panel’s recommendation that Mkhwebane has a case to answer, that’s the end of the impeachment road.