The parliamentary committee that will decide Public Protector Busisiwe Mkhwebane’s fate is unusually representative – a signal that this inquiry is regarded as a serious test for parliamentary oversight.
ANC Deputy Chief Whip Doris Dlakude leads the governing party contingent, including three committee chairpersons, on the inquiry into the possible impeachment of Public Protector Busisiwe Mkhwebane.
Others for the ANC on that unprecedented inquiry that the House had approved to go ahead on 16 March are police committee chairperson Tina Joemat-Pettersson, social development committee chairperson Mondli Gungubele and ethics committee co-chairperson Bekizwe Nkosi.
ANC MPs Judy Hermans and Richard Dyantyi, who regularly presides over mini-plenaries, make up the voting members, alongside alternates Teiliswa Mgweba and Philly Mapulane, the higher education committee chairperson.
It is a senior and serious showing. It remains to be seen how the reliance on committee chairpersons who have their own programmes heavy with legislation and oversight may affect the Section 194 inquiry committee.
The opposition also put a strong foot forward, even if for the DA it was somewhat tricky. Mkhwebane has made much of DA bias against her in correspondence to Speaker Thandi Modise, but also in court during the ultimately unsuccessful bid to interdict…