Cape Town - Former public protector Thuli Madonsela’s affidavit to the impeachment inquiry into the fitness for office of her successor Busisiwe Mkhwebane became a sticking point during her testimony on Monday.
This after Mkhwebane’s legal counsel, advocate Dali Mpofu SC, said they were confused whether her written statement was an affidavit.
Madonsela said there was one version of her statement.
“That version was sent on March 25 with a very tight deadline because of quibbling between lawyers of advocate Mkhwebane and myself,” she said.
Madonsela said nothing had changed in her statement except the correction of typos in an affidavit submitted on March 28.
Madonsela had not consulted with Mkhwebane’s team and evidence leaders, and instead deposed her own affidavit.
Madonsela said the questions Mkhwebane’s team had indicated they wanted to ask her about were “accusing her of certain things”.
“How are you to have a statement by someone prepared to throw you under the bus?” she asked.
Madonsela said the inquiry was not about her conduct. Mpofu then went through the list of questions they had sent her and asked if they were about throwing her under the bus.
Madonsela insisted that she was asked to respond to allegations levelled against her. “The questions were vague.
I did not know the questions were to put me under the bus. I regarded them as irrelevant. Everything was vague,” Madonsela said.
Mpofu said the reason they wanted to consult with her was to assist her with drafting her statement as trained lawyers, as they had done with other witnesses.
He claimed that there was no affidavit from Madonsela.
Mpofu then asked about the procedure on drafting affidavits, saying an affidavit could not be changed when it has been attested to.
He pointed out the discrepancies in her affidavits and asked if she knew about the illegality in her affidavits.
This prompted Madonsela to complain of being accused of criminality.
“I am not accusing you of criminality. I am simply saying you agreed to change a statement that has been attested to. I am simply demonstrating that you and I agreed it is illegal.”
Mpofu added that in some parts of the affidavits only Madonsela signed and in others she signed with the commissioner of oaths.
“None of the statements qualify to be called an affidavit to the extent you or the commissioner of oaths breached the act,” Mpofu said before asking if she was a member of the Legal Practice Council.
Mpofu said Madonsela presented to the committee “just a litany of falsity” and was not an affidavit.
“We will leave it for arguments,” he said. Madonsela protested about his statement on the falsity of her affidavit, saying Mpofu had raised issue with the stamp on one of the affidavits, and now with the correction of typos.
“Where does this falsity come from?” she asked.
Mpofu said she must forget how they got to that discussion.“It is not an affidavit complaint with our laws.”
During cross-examination, it emerged that Madonsela had not been vetted during her term and the State Security Agency had wanted to conduct security vetting when she was finalising an investigation on the landing of a plane at Waterkloof Air Force Base.
She said there was no policy that a public protector should be vetted and that her predecessors were also not vetted by the SSA.
Madonsela said a policy she signed providing for staff to be vetted for security clearance came from the Auditor-General because of a decision of the government.
“I am to argue that it is inappropriate for a head of an institution to impose that people at particular levels must have clearance certificates,” Mpofu said.
Cape Times