‘Mutually destructive’ versions test Mengo’s credibility at sexual harassment tribunal

The versions of former JSC official Kutlwano Moretlwe and judges’ secretary Andiswa Mengo were “mutually destructive” in some aspects, a judicial conduct tribunal investigating the sexual harassment allegations against Eastern Cape judge president Selby Mbenenge heard on Thursday. 

Any dent to Mengo’s credibility could be used to boost Mbenenge’s defence. “It’s either you are not telling the tribunal the truth or Ms Mengo did not tell the tribunal the truth,” suggested Mbenenge’s counsel, Muzi Sikhakhane SC, to Moretlwe.

Moretlwe was the person who assisted Mengo when she travelled from the Eastern Cape to Gauteng to lay the complaint. She told the tribunal that she sat with Mengo and typed while Mengo told her story. 

Moretlwe’s version supported Mengo’s insofar as the role of former chief justice Raymond Zondo was concerned. Moretlwe told the tribunal on Wednesday that Zondo had asked Mengo to redo the complaint because it had been misplaced, as Mengo had testified. But their versions diverged in other respects. 

Most significant was a dispute about whether Mengo had her own laptop when she travelled to Johannesburg — and therefore whether Mengo had an electronic version of her original complaint when she rewrote it after Zondo’s request. 

The significance of all this was that, in January, Sikhakhane had grilled Mengo at length about her claim that she had rewritten the complaint from scratch, without having obtained a copy from Moretlwe. Sikhakhane said he would argue that she was not telling the truth and that, if she did not have a copy, “the ordinary thing would be to request the typed statement”. He would argue she was “less than candid on this issue”, he said.

On Thursday, Moretlwe said Mengo must have had an electronic version. Over Wednesday and Thursday, she testified that as the two were working together on the complaint, it got late. So the two moved to Mengo’s hotel room to continue. At about 9pm, Moretlwe needed to leave, but they were still not finished. So she gave the typed version of what they had worked on to Mengo on a memory stick to transfer to her own laptop — so that Mengo could “finalise” the complaint on her own laptop, which she had brought with her to Johannesburg.

In cross-examination on Thursday, Mengo’s counsel Nasreen Rajab-Budlender SC said that Mengo’s version was that she had not brought her laptop to Johannesburg. Instead the two had worked together, using Moretlwe’s laptop, until about midnight. Mengo never had an electronic version of the complaint, according to her. Moretlwe disputed this. 

In January, Sikhakhane said that Mbenenge’s attorneys had got an unsigned copy of the initial complaint from the JSC secretariat. With Mengo, he began to compare the two versions — the initial one lodged in December and the one before the tribunal, lodged in January. 

Sikhakhane then asked Mengo to read certain sentences from both. In each instance the sentences were “absolutely identical”, despite an almost one-month difference between the writing of the two. By the time the hearing adjourned for the day, they had identified eight instances of, word-for-word, identical statements — even a misplaced full stop in the one was misplaced in the exact same way in the second. But Mengo was adamant that she did not have an electronic version of her initial complaint and stuck to her guns.

Rajab-Budlender suggested on Thursday that it was Moretlwe’s evidence that was “concerning”. She questioned how Moretlwe could remember so well about the laptops but then have forgotten, as Moretlwe said on Wednesday, that former chief justice Raymond Zondo misplaced the initial complaint. “I find your evidence concerning and I will argue that it should not be accepted — particularly as it relates to Ms Mengo,” said Rajab-Budlender.

Evidence continues on Friday.