Cast your mind back to December 2022. The Sunday Independent ran the headline: Cyril Ramaphosa broke the law — Phala Phala Farmgate report.
And it was correct. Retired Chief Justice Sandile Ngcobo chaired a three-member panel to investigate the scandal involving the theft of American dollars out of the president’s Bela Bela farm; a story the Sunday Independent broke as an exclusive along with video footage of the suspected criminals skulking around in the shadows.
Judge Ngcobo found that Ramaphosa had a case to answer, as there was prima facie evidence against him on four serious serious violations. Here is the report.
And this was not some Mickey Mouse panel either. The Ngcobo investigation was an Independent Section 89 panel constituted to get to the bottom of the scandal, hearing and reviewing a number of submissions, including from the president himself.
What Judge Ngcobo found was that President Cyril Ramaphosa had violated his oath of office. This is fact.
The report read as follows: “In light of all the information placed before the Panel, we conclude that this information discloses, prima facie, that the President may have committed:
- A serious violation of sections 96(2)(a).
- A serious violation of section 34(1) of PRECCA.
- A serious misconduct in that the President violated section 96(2)(b) by acting in a way that is inconsistent with his office.
- A serious misconduct in that the President violated section 96(2)(b) by exposing himself to a situation involving a conflict between his official responsibilities and his private business of the Constitution.”
These are serious misgivings about the president of a Constitutional Democracy’s behaviour.
All that was left to do was for Parliament to adopt the report for Ramaphosa to account for his delinquent behaviour.
But we all know what happened — the ANC used its majority in Parliament to vote against the adoption of the report and allowed the matter to die a slow death. Yet more State entities conspired to clear Ramaphosa of wrongdoing — In 2023, the South African Revenue Service said it could find no evidence that the $580,000 for the purchase of livestock paid to Ramaphosa’s farm was declared, despite the president admitting to receiving money from the buyer; the Public Protector cleared Ramaphosa of wrongdoing, saying there was no conflict between the president and his private interests on the farm, thereby exonerating him of being guilty of breaching the Executive Code of Ethics; even the South African Reserve Bank batted away accountability around how the large sum of money came into the country in the first place, saying that was Sars’s baby, and it could only focus on whether or not there were any contraventions of the foreign exchange controls.
And now, the conspiracy to free Ramaphosa from any legal or legislative recourse for his hand in the scandal has climaxed with the National Prosecuting Authority refusing to prosecute Ramaphosa on the charges brought against him by Arthur Fraser relating to money laundering and corruption, saying there was no reasonable prospect of a successful prosecution based on evidence contained in the docket.
Earlier, I used the word “conspiracy” to refer to these cover-ups, but really, the actions have been so blatantly and overtly obvious to exonerate Ramaphosa of any wrongdoing that it seriously calls into question the rule of law in South Africa.
Let me break it down in simple terms. Someone comes into my home from outside the country with millions of rand in foreign currency that is not declared to Sars, ostensibly to pay for items they never received. Other people then break into my house, stealing the foreign cash hidden in couches and other furniture in my home. Bare in mind I’m not home while any of this is happening, so I claim to have known nothing about this. Then, once I find out my home has been broken into and this illegal cash money has been stolen, I send a hit squad into Namibia to catch the crooks, and extradite them, again, illegally, back into South Africa to beat answers out of them. And of course, I’m not personally involved; my people do this for me. And I later claim to have known nothing of this, because I wasn’t there. I didn’t personally order any of these things to happen.
Does this sound like the actions of a President, or the actions of a mob boss?
Ramaphosa may have escaped accountability to the NPA, and escaped Parliamentary accountability because of the ANC’s majority at the time, but will he escape potential private prosecution by the new opposition parties?
And I also wonder what his GNU besties the DA, the self-proclaimed clean governance champions, think about this farce. Are they going to let a president who, according to a Constitutionally mandated enquiry, violated his oath of office, off the hook just to protect the fragile Grand Coalition that has seen them take up a number of ministerial positions in the new Cabinet?
We know the DA has said it would be grilling the NPA in Parliament over its decision, but without holding Ramaphosa to account directly, this feels hollow, especially since the DA’s Helen Zille already said they would defend Ramaphosa in relation to the Phala Phala saga.
You have to question why there is this move to protect Ramaphosa at all costs, but maybe you don’t have to look too far for answers.
But to the government that is supposed to care for all its residents equally without fear nor favour, where everyone is supposed to be equal under the law, I ask: are we South Africans a joke to you?
* Lance Witten is the Editor of IOL.