BLF complains Hawks ignore their ‘WMC’ complaints while ‘jumping’ to get Mkhwebane
The public protector has always been a firm favourite of Andile Mngxitama's party.
South African Public Protector Advocate Busisiwe Mkhwebane, 05 May 2017. Picture: EPA / NIC BOTHMA
In a statement on Wednesday, deregistered political party Black First Land First (BLF) decried what they allege is an unwarranted police investigation of Public Protector Busisiwe Mkhwebane.
Directorate for Priority Crime Investigation (Hawks) boss Godfrey Lebeya confirmed today that an investigation into Mkhwebane was under way, but would not divulge further details.
It followed anti-corruption pressure group Accountability Now laying criminal charges of perjury and defeating the ends of justice against Mkhwebane, with the group’s director Paul Hoffman submitting an affidavit to the police at the Ocean View Police station in Cape Town on Monday.
In addition to the charges, Accountability Now also lodged a maladministration complaint against Mkwhebane with her own office, which will now be obliged to investigate it.
Last month, Accountability Now asked the Legal Practice Council to strike Mkhwebane off the roll of advocates for perjury and for attempting to mislead the court.
This came after the Constitutional Court agreed with the Gauteng High Court in Pretoria that her entire ABSA/Bankorp investigation was flawed, and that Mkhwebane had not been honest during her investigation. The high court set aside her Bankorp-CIEX report, which stated Absa had to repay R1.125 billion, in February.
She has also suffered subsequent losses in court.
However, the BLF remains fully behind Mkhwebane, accusing the Hawks of being a tool for “shady organisations” linked to independent power producers allegedly undermining state utility Eskom.
The party’s Zanele Lwana said it was “shocking” that the police’s elite unit had “literally jumped at the barking of shady organisations that seem associated with the corrupt Independent Power Producers (IPPs) which are collapsing Eskom”.
She opined that the complaint against Mkhwebane had “no merit in fact or in law” and accused Accountability Now of being a “white organisation with apparently the sole purpose of maintaining the anti black status quo under the pretext of fighting corruption”.
Lwana went on to say that the public protector needed to be left alone to do her job and called on the Hawks to |focus on the numerous cases BLF has opened against white monopoly capital (WMC) where no progress has been made at all”.
“In fact BLF now believes that cases against white WMC are never investigated.”
(Edited by Charles Cilliers)
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