Busisiwe Mkhwebane's tenure as Public Protector (October 2016 to September 2023) represents the capture of a Chapter 9 constitutional institution. Where her predecessor Thuli Madonsela had used the office to hold the powerful accountable — producing landmark reports on Nkandla, the SABC, and State Capture — Mkhwebane systematically weaponised the institution against those who opposed the Zuma faction of the ANC.
The SARB/CIEX investigation was the most consequential abuse. Mkhwebane investigated a decades-old apartheid-era bailout of Bankorp/ABSA and recommended that the SARB's constitutional mandate be changed from price stability to a broader socio-economic mandate. The Constitutional Court (Public Protector v SARB, [2019] ZACC 29) found this was done dishonestly and in bad faith. The court ordered personal costs against Mkhwebane — an extraordinary judicial rebuke indicating the court believed she had deliberately acted outside her powers. The mandate change would have benefited entities linked to the Gupta network seeking to repatriate funds.
Mkhwebane's investigation into the Vrede dairy farm / Estina project was another telling failure. Where the case demanded aggressive investigation of the Gupta-linked fraud, Mkhwebane produced a report that was widely criticised for failing to hold the key perpetrators accountable. She also investigated the CR17 campaign funding of President Ramaphosa, which critics characterised as a politically motivated probe aimed at weakening the Ramaphosa presidency.
The Section 194 inquiry was South Africa's first parliamentary process to remove a head of a Chapter 9 institution. The committee heard evidence over months and found Mkhwebane guilty on multiple charges of misconduct and incompetence. The National Assembly voted 261-61 (with 1 abstention) on 12 September 2023 to remove her from office.
The financial cost to taxpayers included over R20 million in legal fees defending Mkhwebane's actions in court — cases she consistently lost. Multiple courts found against her, often with personal costs orders. The institutional damage was incalculable: the Public Protector's credibility, painstakingly built by Madonsela, was systematically undermined.
Evidence presented at the Section 194 inquiry and referenced in the Zondo Commission linked Mkhwebane to the State Security Agency (SSA) during her pre-PP career. The implication — that her appointment was engineered by the Zuma faction to neutralise the office after Madonsela's devastating state capture investigations — was never conclusively proven but remained a consistent thread in the evidence.