Public protector Busisiwe Mkhwebane was never going to have it easy: she came into office after Thuli Madonsela, her predecessor who changed the course of South African history by staring down former president Jacob Zuma over Nkandla. Her appointment was mired in controversy, including claims by the DA that she had been a government spy, and that she was being shoehorned into the job to serve Zuma's state-capture agenda.
No sooner had the dust settled when she took aim at the banking sector, ordering Absa to pay back R1.1bn for the apartheid-era lifeboat to stricken banking group Bankorp. And she threw in a recommendation that sought to alter the Reserve Bank's constitutional mandate. Even the Zuma-appointed finance minister Malusi Gigaba complained.
Now Mkhwebane has issued a new string of reports, among others on Western Cape premier Helen Zille and former sports minister Fikile Mbalula, who was found to have benefited from a sponsor's largesse in respect of a holiday visit to Dubai.
Perhaps sensing it might look good if she were "even-handed", she had another go at Zille, whom she earlier found to have incited racial hatred with her "colonialism" tweets.
In the latest case involving Zille, acting on a "complaint" by Zille's ANC Western Cape rival Cameron Dugmore, Mkhwebane found that Zille violated the executive ethics code by helping her maths teacher son to borrow tablets from the province's education department to offer extra maths lessons to disadvantaged pupils. Zille's son, Paul Maree, was not paid for the lessons, and Zille was entirely open about the whole process.
Support for Zille has come from what Mkhwebane may think is an unlikely source, namely basic education minister Angie Motshekga, who said, "We were completely supportive of this project", and that she was "surprised" by the finding. Already Zille has said she will take the report on review, as she is doing with the colonialism tweets.
Mkhwebane will find that in her attempt to please everyone, she will please none at all. Her duty is to the constitution; it's not to nail an opposition figure every time one has a go at a minister or top official. Prickly and hypersensitive to any criticism, Mkhwebane must get on with her job and stop playing to the gallery...