QUBUDILE Dyantyi will not recuse himself as the chairman of the impeachment proceedings into suspended Public Protector’s fitness to hold office without proper application.
Dyantyi said as a legally trained person, Advocate Busisiwe Mkhwebane should lodge a formal appeal for his recusal from the committee than going around calling media conferences.
In a letter to Mkhwebane, he said without the application, he will not voluntarily step aside.
“As a legally trained person, you would be aware that media statements and WhatsApp messages cannot reasonably be substitutes for recusal applications and I do not intend to have the committee proceedings be determined by the media” said Dyantyi.
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Mkhwebane has not yet filed her application. During a press briefing on Tuesday, 13 June, she called on “all freedom-loving South Africans to join her in demanding for Dyantyi’s removal and the “termination of the committee”.
She said the committee was driven by a predetermined outcome to get rid of her.
“The enquiry is therefore a deliberate waste of taxpayers' money which can never withstand any proper legal scrutiny,” she said.
Mkhwebane also demanded that deputy PP Kholeka Gcaleka releases the Phala Phala report by 7 July.
She wants Dyantyi to be moved because of an allegation that he and ANC Chief Whip, Pemmy Majodina and the late ANC MP Tina Joemat-Pettersson demanded R600 000 from her husband to make the impeachment process "go away”.
Dyantyi and Majodina have denied the allegations.
“I reiterate that unless and until such time as the allegations on which Advocate Mkhwebane seeks to have me recused, is properly placed before the committee in an application for recusal, I am not in position to consider voluntarily recusing myself.
“Accordingly in the absence of a written application, I cannot consider a request that I voluntarily recuse myself and point out again that at no stage have you been impeded from bringing such application fully setting out the reasons for such application and evidence to which consideration can be given. The committee operates in the public domain. Evidence placed before the committee becomes publicly available,” said Dyantyi.
