Public Protector Advocate Busisiwe Mkhwebane has asked the Pretoria deputy judge-president to postpone the review of her Bankorp/Absa report until next year, Eyewitness News (EWN) reported on Friday. This follows reports that Mkhwebane's legal team ditched her.
While Mkhwebane reportedly said the loss of her legal team would not affect the matter, it has now emerged that Mkhwebane said there were too many documents to read through by the deadline for her answering affidavit to be filed, on Monday.
There are about 7,000 documents in the review application, EWN reported.
Two weeks ago, EWN revealed that Mkhwebane's legal team had dumped her, although her office said it did not know why.
There were numerous calls for Mkhwebane to step down after she declined to oppose an application to have one of the recommendations of her report -- that the SA Reserve Bank's mandate should be changed -- overturned.
Absa, Treasury and the Reserve Bank are all taking her entire report on review.
This week, HuffPost SA revealed that Absa had filed a supplementary affidavit, which partly alleges that there are documents missing from the record, showing that Mkhwebane ignored critical evidence.
According to EWN, Mkhwebane has asked the court to postpone the matter from December until 29 January. Absa has opposed her request, reportedly because its founding affidavit was filed two-and-a-half months ago.