Public Protector to approach higher court over Bankorp-CIEX costs order

Public Protector Busisiwe Mkhwebane plans to approach the Supreme Court of Appeal after she was ordered to pay a portion of the costs that the SA Reserve Bank incurred in a court case related to the Bankorp-CIEX matter.

"She plans to petition the Supreme Court of Appeal because she believes it could arrive at a different conclusion," her office's spokesperson Oupa Segalwe told Fin24 in a WhatsApp message on Thursday afternoon. 

He said she has not yet decided on a date to approach the court. 

On Wednesday the North Gauteng High Court dismissed Mkhwebane's application for leave to appeal a previous judgment that she personally pay 15% of the costs incurred by the central bank.

• READ: Court dismisses Public Protector's appeal on Bankorp-CIEX costs order

The court case related to a report Mkhwebane released in June 2017, in which she called for ABSA to repay R1.125bn for what she said was a "lifeboat" provided to Bankorp by the South African Reserve Bank during the apartheid era.

Both the Reserve Bank and ABSA filed applications to have a court review the report and set it aside, saying the Public Protector did not have her facts straight.  

In February the North Gauteng High Court ruled that Mkhwebane must pay the money to the central bank in her personal capacity. At the time the court also ordered that her Bankorp-CIEX report, in which she ordered ABSA to pay R1.125bn, be set aside.