Spokesperson for Busisiwe Mkhwebane’s office, Oupa Segalwe, revealed this on Thursday as he was responding to allegations the Public Protector’s Northern Cape offices are on the verge of collapse as evidenced by the closure of the Kuruman office in 2019, as well as the recent technical issues and staff shortages affecting the Kimberley and Upington offices respectively.

Segalwe says the Kuruman office was underutilised and was not viable, receiving 43 complaints in an entire calendar year, whilst it had a full team of five people running and investigating cases. He attributes the underutilisation of the Kuruman office to its location. “It wasn’t easily accessible to the people, so we decided to close it,” says Segalwe. The Public Protector was heavily criticised for closing the office, seeing as it was catering to a relatively rural part of the Northern Cape. Segalwe stresses the closure “does not mean we are shutting the door in the faces of the people of Kuruman”.

He says they are in the process of implementing the Public Protector’s memorandum of understanding (MOU) with the Justice Department to enable the Kuruman office to get up and running again, with at least one staff member.

According to a source who wishes to remain anonymous, the Public Protector’s Northern Cape offices are in a state of disarray, compromising the rendering of services to the people of the vast province. It is reported that at some point in the new year, the Northern Cape offices’ servers were down, making the menial task of sending an email, impossible. Telephone lines have also not been working at the Kimberley office, in particular, for at least two weeks. The Upington office, on the other hand, has allegedly been rendered non-functional. It’s alleged the regional office in Upington is dealing with a backlog of cases that haven’t been attended to for more than two years due to there being only one investigator in the region. She and a regional manager are the only employees at the office at this stage.

Segalwe, says they are fully aware of the above-mentioned issues, describing them as nothing more than hiccups, that have either already been resolved or will be resolved shortly. Segalwe says the offices in Kimberley and Upington are fully operational and have, in fact, managed to conclude investigations into four cases that formed a part of the batch of reports released by Mkhwebane earlier in February 2020. “If you’re teetering on the brink of collapse, you couldn’t produce that kind of work,” says Segalwe. The spokesperson blames the technical glitches and issues with the Upington office on nothing more than load-shedding, severe thunderstorms and unrealistic expectations. These complaints come mere days since Sphelo Samuel, an attorney in the Free State office, sent National Assembly Speaker Thandi Modise a scathing letter, accusing Mkhwebane of misusing her position to the detriment of employees

The anonymous source has criticised the MOU, adding that it compromises the Public Protector’s office seeing as they may receive complaints from the public regarding their partner in the MOU, the Justice Department.

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