Embattled National Assembly speaker Nosiviwe Mapisa-Nqakula.(Photo by Gallo Images / Frennie Shivambu)
Nosiviwe Mapisa-Nqakula’s attempts to avoid media scrutiny of her likely arrest on corruption and money laundering charges had the opposite effect of inviting public gaze after the state revealed damning parts of the case against her.
Although the Pretoria high court reserved its judgment to 2 April on the embattled National Assembly speaker’s urgent application to block her arrest — a day before she and her legal representatives said she would be available to submit herself to authorities — the legal challenge ensured greater public interest in her alleged criminal conduct.
In court papers filed for her application, Mapisa-Nqakula argued that being arrested would limit her “freedom of movement, and even the right to liberty is curbed to an extent”.
“In my case, my position as Speaker of the National Assembly of Parliament and [a] member of the ruling African National Congress, with the so-called ‘step-aside rule’ carries the further humiliation of publicity and public speculation, as well as the limitations on the continuation of my office and vocation,” she stated.
But Mapisa-Nqakula faces being removed from the speaker’s chair before her term ends ahead of the 29 May national elections.
This comes after the National Assembly’s deputy speaker, Lechesa Tsenoli, granted the opposition Democratic Alliance’s request for a motion of no confidence debate and vote on her, following the National Prosecuting Authority’s (NPA) statement under oath this week that it wanted to charge her with 12 counts of corruption and one of money laundering.
Advocate Bheki Manyathi, the deputy director of public prosecutions in the NPA’s Investigating Directorate, said in an affidavit that Mapisa-Nqakula allegedly solicited and received cash bribes totalling more than R4.5 million from a former defence contractor between 2016 and 2019 during the speaker’s defence and military veterans ministerial tenure, which ended in 2021.
In court arguments on Monday opposing Mapisa-Nqakula’s application, the NPA used the opportunity to assert that no one was above the law, adding that the corruption suspect had to be treated as an ordinary citizen.
Advocate Makhosi Gwala, arguing on behalf of the NPA, told the court that it was not in the interest of justice for prosecutors to work on Mapisa-Nqakula’s “timetable” when it would be convenient for her to be apprehended.
“If the applicant [Mapisa-Nqakula] were in hospital, it would be a different story. In this case, it is not even the convenience of the applicant [to delay the arrest, it is the convenience of the attorney [Stephen May],” Gwala argued.
Regardless of Judge Sulet Potterill’s 2 April ruling in the Pretoria high court on when the speaker can be charged, her first appearance is likely to draw a larger public gaze owing to the NPA’s public pronouncement of her charges, adding to the “humiliation” she sought to avoid by stalling her arrest.