Cape Town - Advocate Dali Mpofu told the inquiry into the fitness of Public Protector Busisiwe Mkhwebane to hold office on Monday that they were a target of dirty tricks after his emails and cellphone were blocked since Sunday.
“We have very serious security concerns on our side. Since yesterday (Sunday) morning my emails and telephone communication has been completely locked by people I refer to as ‘rogue unit’,” he said.
“It is quite serious. We think we are a target of dirty tricks and that is why I have not received messages from advocate Bawa since yesterday morning,” Mpofu said.
He made the statement when he was objecting to the email addresses of Mkhwebane being shown when an affidavit of the witness was shown on the screen.
Evidence leader advocate Nazreen Bawa was taking through former employee at Office of the Public Protector Tebogo Kekana on his affidavit in connection with his work laptop that was confiscated by a law firm.
Kekana was testifying on the missing emails from both the work and private email addresses of Mkhwebane after his laptop was taken by the law firm when he probed on for allegedly disseminating confidential information without authority.
He claimed that when his laptop was returned, emails from Mkhwebane were missing and that the Office of Public Protector’s IT could not find them.
Kekana also said some of the emails were found in online back up emails.
As he was testifying on the emails, Mpofu rose to object to the display of the email addresses of Mkhwebane.
He said the display of the email addresses was an unnecessary invasion of Mkhebane’s privacy and security before detailing his own problems with communications since Sunday.
Mpofu told the inquiry the move was “interference from sinister forces”.
In her response, Bawa apologised for screening the email addresses when she was going through Kekana’s affidavit, saying “there was no intent to put them on the screen”.
Last week, the inquiry heard at its commencement of proceedings that Mkhwebane was unlawfully suspended and was not able to prepare for the scheduled hearings.
“Her email was blocked until last Thursday. To say the suspension has nothing to do with this committee, with the greatest respect, is a fallacy,” Mpofu said on Monday last week.
He had told the inquiry that Mkhwebane could not access her emails as a direct consequence of the suspension for a month.
The issue of Mkhwebane’s emails was sorted later in the week after she was asked to take her laptop to the local offices of the Public Protector in Cape Town.
Cape Times