President Cyril Ramaphosa says he will take urgent legal action to challenge the public protector’s findings of dishonesty and money-laundering against him.
In a Sunday night briefing that demonstrated how much of a threat those findings may be to his continued leadership of
the ANC and SA, Ramaphosa said Busisiwe Mkhwebane’s report was "fundamentally and irretrievably flawed".
The president’s decision to resort to the courts could see him squaring up with the head of a Chapter 9 institution, a prospect that has seen the rand take a knock.
The rand was under some pressure after Mkhwebane’s announcement, though international factors were predominant, including expectations of US Federal Reserve rate cuts.
"The markets are worried that anything that upsets a potential reform agenda is seen as growth negative," said Nedbank chief economist Dennis Dykes. "Clearly, this report produces more uncertainty, as it threatens someone who is perceived as bringing about growth-boosting structural reforms," Dykes said.
In a carefully worded media briefing on national television, Ramaphosa said his lawyers would head to court this week to urgently challenge Mkhwebane’s report on a R500,000 donation Ramaphosa’s campaign received from the graft-accused Bosasa group.
The challenge would also include her order that he be compelled to disclose the identities of all his CR17 campaign funders.
Ramaphosa on Sunday was at pains to stress that he had decided to take this legal action "not out of disrespect for the public protector", but because the report — which will undoubtedly provide ammunition to his political opponents within the ANC — fell short of the requirements that it be fair, factually correct and legally sound.
He avoided using the heated accusations of public enterprises minister Pravin Gordhan, who has directly accused Mkhwebane of abusing her office and pursuing politically motivated investigations aimed at undermining Ramaphosa’s "New Dawn" campaign.
Gordhan is Ramaphosa’s key ally in their fight to clean up the government and rid the governing party of corruption that has flourished in the past 10 years.
He has also been at the receiving end of reports and recommendations by the public protector in the past few weeks.
Asked whether he thought the public protector’s findings were part of a "fight-back" agenda by those in the party he defeated at the Nasrec conference, the president said: "Whether the public protector is motivated by malice, I’m not going to comment on that."
Ramaphosa told the media on Sunday that he was duty bound to respect the offices of Chapter 9 institutions.
He said he would exercise his legal right to challenge Mkhwebane’s report, which he said "alleged conduct that cannot and should not be taken lightly by anyone in our country. I decided to take this action not out of disrespect for the public protector, as a crucial institution of our democracy, but in the expectation that the institution will ultimately be strengthened by an independent and impartial judicial review.
"My decision to seek a judicial review of this report should by no means be seen as a comment on the person who occupies the office, the competence or the motives of the public protector."
Ramaphosa said the report contained "factual inaccuracies of a material nature" and findings that are "wrong in law, irrational and in some instances, exceed the scope of the powers of the public protector".
Responding to questions from journalists, Ramaphosa said he did not know that Bosasa had contributed to his campaign. He said as the candidate, he was divorced from the fundraising, though he knew his team was sourcing campaign funds.
Mkhwebane on Friday released findings that Ramaphosa had deliberately lied to parliament about a R500,000 donation his CR17 election campaign had received from Gavin Watson, CEO of African Global Operations group (formerly trading as Bosasa).
She ordered that he be compelled to disclose who had provided several hundred million rand in funding to the campaign. She also found there was "merit" to allegations by DA leader Mmusi Maimane that the manner in which this payment was made raised suspicions of money laundering, and ordered national director of public prosecutions Shamila Batohi to investigate the "prima facie" evidence she had uncovered.
Ramaphosa stressed that the "serious deficiencies" in Mkhwebane’s report required "final and impartial determination" by the courts.
In response to the public protector’s preliminary findings, Ramaphosa’s lawyers Harris Nupen Molebatsi have slammed the money-laundering findings, which constitute the most serious allegation yet made by a public protector against a sitting president, as "absurd". They were adamant that there was no legal obligation on Ramaphosa to disclose who funded his campaign as they "were made to CR17 [the campaign] and not to him", and therefore did not constitute a personal benefit to him.
According to the lawyers, if "the public protector were to censure the president for his failure to do so [to declare the donation] … the public protector would then also have to extend her investigation, in pursuance of her constitutional duty of impartiality, to all other politicians who failed to disclose the donations made to their party political campaigns".
With Odwa Mjo
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