The taxpayer's bill for Public Protector Selby Baqwa's exploration of Minister of Minerals and Energy Penuell Maduna's possible slander of the auditor general is on track to outstrip the corruption watchdog's total annual budget of R7,5-million.

At least five legal teams are due to appear before Baqwa's investigation, which should run for at least the month of June.

Baqwa has been appointed to probe Maduna's extraordinary accusation in Parliament last June that the office of Auditor General Henry Kluever cooked the state oil company's books, hiding, among other things, the theft of R170-million of oil.

Baqwa's ruling will, in the words of Kluever's counsel, be "of extremely grave import". Either Maduna will have been shown to have committed a colossal defamation, or Kluever, who appeared relaxed this week, will be proved incompetent or dishonest.

The state oil company, the Central Energy Fund (CEF), has set aside R1-million for its lawyers, while Kluever's team expects to spend R3,1-million.

Kluever's office said this week that the whole of November had also been set aside for the hearing, which would double all the bills.

Three other former employees of the CEF who have been implicated in Maduna's attack will also be represented by lawyers, whose tabs will be covered by the taxpayer, provided it can be established they were acting within the course and scope of their duties.

Maduna is being represented by two advocates, while Barend Petersen, the accountant Maduna appointed last January to peruse the CEF's old accounts, will have a lawyer courtesy of the taxpayer. The CEF's acting general manager Howard Roberts said this week the company had yet to budget for Petersen's legal costs.

Petersen's firm, Ntsaluba Nkonki Sizwe, which was appointed without going through a tender, has earned at least R2,5-million - the figure Maduna gave for its fees last November.

All the legal fees exclude Baqwa's own bill, which includes hiring an auditor from Arthur Andersen to sit on his panel. Baqwa and his deputy, Kluever and many of his senior aides, as well as a string of CEF officials, will all be out of action for their normal duties during the hearing.

Judging by this week's proceedings, the matter is unlikely to be wrapped up in a month. Baqwa's panel took a day to decide what to do with one of its members, Zodwa Manase, who found herself a victim of Maduna's insatiable appetite for controversy.

Maduna decided earlier this month to employ her at one of the state oil operations, Soekor, despite the fact she was already working with Baqwa on the probe. Manase, an accountant, opted to resign last week after Kluever's office alerted Baqwa to the obvious conflict of interest.

Maduna's counsel, Kessie Naidu, SC, opposed Kluever's application for Manase's resignation from Soekor, saying, among other things, the "auditor general has a habit of crying foul". Naidu argued that Manase's Soekor resignation made her a "credit to the commission ... although, with respect, she had no business to do so".

Naidu failed to convince Baqwa, who announced Manase would recuse herself. Baqwa was admitted to hospital that night with a bronchial infection and the hearings were called off for this week.

Maduna's attack on Kluever in Parliament last year was accompanied by a tirade in the media in which the minister accused Kluever of not being qualified for the job as he was not a chartered accountant. Kluever has spent most of his life working in state expenditure.

Six weeks after appointing Ntsaluba Nkonki Sizwe last January, Maduna dismissed the CEF's trading chief, Kobus van Zyl. Van Zyl has been sitting at home on full pay, and has still to be formally disciplined - his disciplinary hearing has been postponed pending the outcome of Baqwa's hearing.

Van Zyl was present this week, chatting confidently to Kluever and his colleagues, many of whom are privately gung-ho about their chances.

Kluever and his team were accompanied by several auditors from private firms who helped audit the CEF's books. Many expressed exasperation at the cost and hassle of what they consider a pointless ordeal.

The platoon of auditors sat along the back row of the inquest room on the second floor of the Dutch Reformed church's Synodal Centre in Pretoria. Petersen sat on the side with his lawyer, while Van Zyl and his lawyer perched in the front row alongside the lawyers acting for the CEF, Maduna and Kluever. Baqwa and his three, or rather two, panellists looked on from behind piles of paperwork.

After winning the recusal, Kluever was heard to mutter "watch this space" as the hearing adjourned on Monday.

There has been much speculation in oil industry circles that Maduna axed Van Zyl on the advice of Liberian Emanuel Shaw II, who was advising the minister at the time. Shaw subsequently took over Van Zyl's office at the CEF's Johannesburg headquarters when its former chair, Don Mkhwanazi, gave him a lucrative consulting contract.

Mkhwanazi has since resigned in the wake of the scandal surrounding Shaw's appointment, which is still in place - despite the fact Shaw, who spends much of his time on official Liberian state business, has yet to submit any written work to the Department of Minerals and Energy. Shaw's contract was worth R3-million a year.

The public protector, meanwhile, has been denied a bigger budget and provincial branches, and is struggling to accommodate its enormous workload with only 12 investigators.

Baqwa's office had not disclosed its costs for the hearing at the time of going to press, while Maduna's director general was unavailable.

With acknowledgements to Mungo Soggot and Mail & Guardian.