Cape Town - Suspended Public Protector Busisiwe Mkhwebane would deny that she instructed investigators in her office not to rely on Gupta leaks when they were investigating the Vrede Dairy project.
This was the assertion made on Tuesday by Advocate Dali Mpofu when cross-examining former senior investigator in the Office of Public Protector Tebogo Kekana.
Kekana was roped into the latter part of the Vrede Dairy project and helped compile the report.
“The Public Protector will deny she said you must not rely on the Gupta leaks. The only thing she did was to caution about authenticity of some of that information,” Mpofu said.
But Kekana said he had indicated in Monday’s testimony that he was informed of the instruction not to follow the Gupta leaks by his supervisor, Mr Ndou.
Mpofu said Mkhwebane would deny the insinuation Kekana made that she had instructed the removal of names of politicians, including former Free State premier Ace Magashule and former agriculture MEC Mosebenzi Zwane, from the Vrede Dairy project investigation report.
Again, Kekana said: “I only informed by Mr Ndou.”
He could not recall what reasons were given other than “I remember it was an instruction”.
However, Kekana agreed during cross examination that if there was no evidence, individuals should not be implicated.
Mpofu said the removal of names was meaningless if there was good reason for a name to be included or excluded.
“It would be fair to remove (names) from the report,” Kekana said in his response.
Asked about the removal of the Vrede Dairy Project lead investigator from the investigation, Kekana said he did not see anything wrong with the removal if there was a conflict of interest and proven evidence.
But, he said, the lead investigator was a person of good integrity.
“I would not think she would do anything lesser.”
Meanwhile, Mpofu said his legal team may not have to summon former president Jacob Zuma to testify at the inquiry.
He previously said they may call Zuma after reports suggested that Mkhwebane had held a meeting in connection with the CIEX investigation report.
“There is a suggestion that there was a meeting and the president at that time was Zuma and he does not seem to know about the meeting,” he said before asking Kekana to confirm such a meeting.
In his response, Kekana said: “I never had any meeting with President Zuma.”
He said the meeting that took place was between the Office of the Public Protector and the presidency.
“That meeting dealt with issues of the Special Investigating Unit (SIU), and practicalities of the SIU proclamation that the Public Protector had in mind.
“I did not know about that meeting. I was invited and when I went there the meeting had begun and there was already a discussion,” Kekana said, adding that Mkhwebane had indicated that they were to be assisted with the remedial action on the CIEX investigation report to assist with the proclamation or re-opening of the matter.
However, he said he did not understand why they had to get assistance from presidency’s legal advisers.
Cape Times