Suspended Public Protector Busisiwe Mkhwebane during a break in her impeachment proceedings at Parliament in March 2023. (Photo: Shelley Christians) 
Those of us paying off some karmic debt, or just killing time watching the daily broadcasts of the historic Section 194 impeachment inquiry, have grown accustomed to a general lowering of the tone of some personal interactions.
Read in Daily Maverick: “Ace Magashule placed his MEC for agriculture at centre of Vrede dairy scandal, Madonsela told hearing”
Supporters of the now-suspended Public Protector (PP), advocate Busisiwe Mkhwebane, are the regular howlers, and include advocate Dali Mpofu, the Economic Freedom Fighters’ Julius Malema and Omphile Maotwe, as well as the African Transformation Movement’s Vuyo Zungula.
Advocate Madonsela is a difficult person to read. She is softly-spoken, generally, and a sort of benign smile holds her features together. Inscrutable is what comes to mind. Disarming.
The public Madonsela we think we know is one who represented the office of the PP between 2009 and 2016, authored the Nkandla report, and lit the fire to the tinder that is the State Capture Report - the “black swan” of investigations, as she referred to it.
Of forgiveness and neuroscience
What we did learn about Madonsela, PP, is that she would organise meetings with people who might disagree with her in her office, and she “always made sure I brought my team to meetings”.
She did this to model the fact that her leadership style was one of reliance on the thinking in the group. However, ultimately everything she signed was what she believed was the truth, and legally sound.
United Democratic Movement (UDM) leader Bantu Holomisa asked Madonsela how she felt about “the same people” (the ANC) who had attempted to discredit her after Nkandla and the State Capture Report, now praising her.
Madonsela is worth quoting verbatim in this instance, for it is the frequency of her statement that elevates it above the legalese, sarcasm and insult that has consumed this inquiry.
“I am not surprised that I get praised because we all deal with life based on the new information that we have at any given stage in life. We act according to what we know, what we think, and how we feel. That is what neuroscience tells us.
“I hold no grudges against anybody who dealt with me in any particular way at any given stage.
“They did so in terms of what they thought was good for them, or the party, or the country at the time. And the fact that we differ on what we think is good for the country at any given stage does not mean we should always differ.
“When we have persuaded each other to see a picture that is beyond my paradigm and your paradigm, there is room for some dialectical change. I am happy about the changes I see, because they give me hope for our democracy. They give me hope for the country.”
Thuli Madonsela. (Photo: Gallo Images/Esa Alexander)
That slippery thing truth
Madonsela also set out her understanding of that slippery thing “truth”, with regard to Mkhwebane’s assertion that she [Madonsela] had left a “provisional” report in the Vrede matter, when she had left office.
“It depends on the context. If the facts appear to logically connect, you would arrive at a particular answer. It is not illogical on what appears to be fact. Of course you later realise that what appeared to be facts are not facts, and then it becomes untrue,” offered Madonsela.
Mpofu spent so much of the day drilling away at the legality of corrected typographical errors in Madonsela’s statement to the inquiry, that the DA’s Kevin Milam cried out in frustration.
At one stage Mpofu and the committee were in discussion about a letter in the alphabet and how a mistake had been corrected, for the umteenth time.
“Chair, Chair. We have been going on about this for four hours! I am at the end of my patience with this.”
Getting down and very dirty
Towards the end of the day, it did get down and very dirty when Mpofu asked Madonsela what she had thought of insults she’d faced in public. That she was a spy for the CIA, and others. And then proceeded to read these attacks on Madonsela into the record.
The Prof had had enough.
“Even by your standards, this was the lowest. To bring insults that have not been in the public domain, to bring them into this space!” she lashed out.
Then continued: “I am shocked beyond measure that you, as an advocate of the high court of this country, have taken slurs – a lot of them have never been said in Parliament – that you have repeated now. They are about my looks… what you have brought was what President Zuma said in the streets into the records, and that is shocking and unprofessional.”
She accused Mpofu of “taking a street fight and bringing it here. You have reduced my response to what was said about forgiveness. I did not say I have forgiven, I said people change”.
Madonsela said she expected “MPs, lawyers and reasonable people to change their minds”.
Of the committee members, Madonsela told Mpofu “they are here in this room trying to make sure that South Africa works for South Africans”.
Mpofu attempted to backtrack, saying he did preface reading out the insults by saying they were “despicable”.
“You are elevating those things,” said Madonsela, “Again Mr Mpofu, this is not my impeachment, it is your client’s impeachment.”
And then Madonsela lanced the boil in her parting words to the committee.
“I was shocked that I was asked if I was an advocate or not, born here or not. The only thing I was not asked was whether I am a woman or not, and to prove it.”
Suspended Public Protector Busisiwe Mkhwebane during a break in her impeachment proceedings at Parliament in March 2023. (Photo: Shelley Christians)
Spies are all lies
Mpofu, towards the end of proceedings, said it was his intention to “assure you there is no evidence, the record will show, that the State Security Agency (SSA) was directly involved with the Public Protector”.
Read in Daily Maverick: Inside Busisiwe Mkhwebane's State Security Agency-riddled Public Protector's office
The advocate might have missed extensive testimony on former SSA Director General Arthur Fraser’s continued links with Mkhwebane after her appointment in 2016.
Mkhwebane is expected to testify from 15 to 31 March. DM