President Cyril Ramaphosa will be given about eight days to explain in writing to parliament’s standing committee on public accounts (Scopa) the meaning of remarks he made about the use of state funds for party political campaigning at a meeting of the ANC’s national executive committee late in 2021.
An audio clip of about two minutes of Ramaphosa’s remarks was widely distributed to the public. It suggested that state funds including those of the State Security Agency (SSA) were used in the run-up to the ANC’s elective conference.
Scopa decided on Tuesday that a letter will be sent to Ramaphosa on Wednesday for reply by a deadline of next Thursday asking for an explanation.
There was agreement across political parties that a summons for Ramaphosa to appear before the committee in person at this stage would be premature as he has not indicated any unwillingness to do so. A summons would not accord with the established procedures of the committee.
Suspended ANC member Mervyn Dirks, who raised Ramaphosa’s remarks in a letter to Scopa, had asked for him to be summonsed. Dirks has been removed from Scopa but made an opening statement to the committee on Tuesday after losing an urgent court application to be reinstated in his Scopa and other parliamentary positions.
He said he had complained to public protector Busisiwe Mkhwebane about Ramaphosa’s “serious breach” of parliamentary ethics by not reporting the criminal act of the unauthorised use of state funds, and will write to chief justice and chair of the commission of inquiry into state capture Raymond Zondo about Ramaphosa’s “willful act of criminal omission” in failing to disclose this information during his testimony to the commission.
The committee reserves its right to call Ramaphosa to appear in person, depending on what it decides as the way forward based on Ramaphosa’s written explanation.
Parliamentary legal adviser Fatima Ebrahim told the committee the National Assembly or any of its committees can summon anyone to appear or produce documents. However, a summons should only be used as a last resort if an individual refused a reasonable request to attend in person.
She pointed out that only a portion of about two minutes of Ramaphosa’s remarks had been leaked and not their whole context.
ANC whip on Scopa Bheki Hadebe — who took over after Dirks was suspended — said all executive organs of state must be accountable to parliament through Scopa, which is not in the business of protecting anyone, regardless of their position.
He pointed out that there was no publicly available record of the entire NEC meeting at which Ramaphosa made the remarks with the audio clip not providing the context of his remarks. Hadebe did not believe there was any justification for Ramaphosa to be summonsed as he had not demonstrated any refusal to answer questions in parliament. Doing so would be highly unreasonable, unjustifiable and irrational, he said. Scopa had to abide by the principles of procedural fairness.
Scopa chair Mkhuleko Hlengwa said Ramaphosa’s remarks were serious and had to be investigated especially in the context of escalating fruitless, wasteful and unauthorised expenditure across all three spheres of government. The SSA would also be informed of the Scopa proceedings, as well as the auditor-general.
The leaked recording emerged towards the end of 2021 and Ramaphosa can be heard saying: “One of the officials said as these people from the State Security [Agency] testify [at the state capture commission], one of the officials said soon they will be revealing how money was used for some campaigns, and I said I would rather they say you got money from this business for CR17 than for the public to finally hear that their public money was used to advance certain campaigns.”
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