Stalingrad defence: Little wiggle room as Mkhwebane, Mpofu and Malema play blank cards

Here we are. 

In Stalingrad — metaphorically speaking — committee room M46 in the Marks Building in Cape Town, where suspended Public Protector Advocate Busisiwe Mkhwebane and her legal representative, Advocate Dali Mpofu, arrived to meet her potential Waterloo this past week.

“Be careful what you wish for, you might just get it,” Mpofu warned at the start, adding the caveat that his client was there “under protest”.

He cautioned also that the process could go well beyond the September deadline for the Section 194 inquiry and told MPs to brace themselves.

However, after announcing that they were ready “to rock and roll”, a mostly mute Mkhwebane and an almost permanently aggrieved Mpofu soon found themselves up against a well-briefed committee with chair, Qubudile Dyantyi, holding the decorum and the narrow focus of the inquiry.

There are more than 9,000 pages of documentation in this matter which evidence leader Advocate Nazreen Bawa, her team, the witnesses and committee members, have all had to internalise — like a long, long poem, or all of Shakespeare’s Richard III.

Former SARS executive Johann van Loggerenberg, who testified this week, has lived the recurring nightmare for eight years. He is one witness who could probably recite the 9,000 pages in his sleep.

Mpofu had attempted to rattle Van Loggerenberg earlier by quizzing him about his mental health, a matter Van Loggerenberg soon dispensed with, saying it was no secret and “I have written a book about it”.

It was an ugly and vicious attack.

Later EFF MP Omphile Maotwe continued the crude bullying, suggesting Van Loggerenberg had been drinking whisky while being led through his evidence by Bawa the previous day.

However, the attempt to lower the tone and substance, as the EFF has managed to do in the National Assembly, was cut short by members of the committee.

African Christian Democratic Party MP Marie Sukers told Dyantyi she had been “extremely uncomfortable” with the EFF’s behaviour: “I humbly call on the chairperson to re-establish that boundary.”

Other MPs, including DA MP Kevin Mileham, placed on record Mpofu’s tone. Freedom Front Plus chief whip Corné Mulder also helped keep the train on the track.

“The committee is not a court of law and it is not a quasi legal proceeding… From my perspective, if Advocate Mpofu and the Public Protector are under the impression we are going to do the work that’s already been done by the courts, they are mistaken,” said Mulder. “We are not the court of Parliament.”

The Section 194 inquiry into the Public Protector’s fitness to hold office was always going to be a final, bloody frontier in the drawn-out battle that took place (and is taking place) on several fronts during Jacob Zuma’s era of State Capture. It has cost the country dearly.

That the EFF is firmly in Mkhwebane’s corner comes as no surprise. This week it was clear, however, that members had no intention of engaging with their 9,000-page homework assignment.

The strategy in this version of The Matrix, from the start by Mpofu, was to waffle — “While I don’t mean to be facetious…”, or “Speaking with all humility…” — and to lead the committee outside its set parameters and into taking the Blue Pill.

EFF members, including leader Julius Malema, who appeared virtually on a black screen as “Mr’s iPad”, had nothing to offer but vacuous argument, baffling analogies and childish bullying.

Malema — either between, during or after his press conference on the same day — cut in to insult ANC committee member Xola Nqola as “a politician wannabee” when Nqola suggested Mpofu get on with questioning witnesses instead of “rallying”.

ANC MP Violet Siwela said: “As the committee we know exactly why we are here.”

At one stage, attempting to convince the inquiry to return to the origin story and to widen the inquiry, Mpofu told a patchy story, from the Eastern Cape he said, about leaves, a bucket and some stones. 

“You have leaves and stones. Then they give you a bucket to fetch water, they open things … after the sifting we put back the stones,” he said.

Translated from Mpofu, this could mean anything. 

But earlier the SC did mention that he would not hesitate to introduce new material and might even call former president Zuma himself to testify … and President Cyril Ramaphosa, come to think of it.

The SARS “rogue unit” narrative was the Schwerer Gustav in the armoury of Zuma’s minions. (Schwerer Gustav was a massive World War 2 cannon the Nazis intended to deploy to Stalingrad in 1942-43.)

It was used variously and randomly by Mkhwebane, former SARS commissioner Tom Moyane and the former head of the Directorate for Priority Crime Investigation, Berning Ntlemeza. 

Targets included former minister of finance Pravin Gordhan and former deputy SARS commissioner Ivan Pillay as well as various senior officials, including Van Loggerenberg as head of the High Risk Investigative Unit.

The impeachment inquiry is a historic moment. The first in democratic South Africa. There is a lot riding on the outcome in terms of the rule of law and constitutional accountability. 

Mkhwebane has been at the centre of serious accusations and court judgments that she has abused her office. Before her appointment, Mkhwebane worked as an analyst at the State Security Agency with Arthur Fraser as her director-general.

Throughout, Mkhwebane remained silent with an earpiece in her ear and permanently attached to her cellphone. She refused to answer the most basic questions from committee members, saying she preferred to provide these in writing.

All this while Mpofu revelled in making statements and threats.

“Since yesterday we have been inundated with people who wish to testify,” he told the committee. 

The inquiry continues this week with Ivan Pillay set to testify. DM