The bombshell findings of the panel that investigated the Phala Phala allegations against President Cyril Ramaphosa will send shock waves through the body politic and bolster the ambitions of those who want to unseat him at the ANC’s elective conference later in December.
The findings of the panel are possible grounds for Ramaphosa’s impeachment but the process to deal with this will probably have to wait until 2023 as the National Assembly goes into recess from December 7 after holding a special sitting to debate the findings of the panel on Tuesday. The session is likely to be a rowdy one, with opposition parties baying for Ramaphosa’s blood.
National Assembly speaker Nosiviwe Mapisa-Nqakula established the Section 89 independent panel chaired by retired chief justice Sandile Ngcobo to establish whether there are grounds for impeachment.
If so, the National Assembly could decide to initiate an impeachment inquiry. The recommendations made by the panel are, however, not final and binding on the National Assembly but if it does decide to proceed with an impeachment inquiry it must establish an impeachment committee. Any decision on impeachment by the National Assembly will require a two-thirds majority.
As the panel notes in its report: “The constitution gives the National Assembly the authority to impeach and remove the president from office for a serious violation of the constitution or the law, serious misconduct or inability to perform the functions of office.”
This is exactly what the panel suggested may have taken place with regard to the theft of thousands of dollars from Ramaphosa’s Phala Phala game farm and subsequent actions.
It found that there is a prima facie case that Ramaphosa may have seriously violated the constitution in undertaking paid work in operating his game farm, thus exposing himself to a conflict between his official responsibilities and his private business; in acting in a manner inconsistent with his office; and that he might be guilty of a violation of the Prevention and Combating of Corrupt Activities Act (Precca) by not reporting the theft of probably more than $580,000 to the Hawks. Instead he reported it to the head of the presidential protection unit Maj-Gen Wally Rhoode.
The panel notes that in terms of the rules of parliament a serious violation of the constitution or the law or serious misconduct involves an element of bad faith.
Equally damning for Ramaphosa is that the panel did not accept his explanations and justifications of his actions. For example, the panel said it has “substantial doubt as to whether the stolen foreign currency is the proceeds of sale” of 20 buffaloes as claimed by Ramaphosa. If this was established it would constitute a serious violation of the constitution and Precca. It also did not accept his reasoning that his ownership of the game farm through a company was not paid work.
“We think the president has a case to answer on the origin of the foreign currency that was stolen as well as the underlying transaction for it,” the panel’s report said.
The far-reaching findings of the panel were totally unexpected. Even DA leader John Steenhuisen believed that Ramaphosa would be largely exonerated and Ramaphosa himself has always maintained his innocence. Many gave him the benefit of the doubt while investigations by the Hawks, the Reserve Bank, SA Revenue Service (Sars), the Financial Intelligence Centre and the public protector were under way. The panel’s report is the first time that an independent conclusion has been reached about the prima facie illegality of Ramaphosa’s actions.
Adding to the doubt about the validity of the allegations against Ramaphosa and about whether the panel would find against him was the fact that they were always tainted by the political leanings of those who made them. The complaint with the police was laid in June by former head of the State Security Agency (SSA) Arthur Fraser, a known supporter of former president Jacob Zuma. Some interpreted the complaint as a pre-emptive strike by Fraser ahead of the negative findings against him by the Zondo commission of inquiry into state capture.
The parliamentary call for an inquiry into the Phala Phala saga was lodged by Vuyolwethu Zungula, president of the African Transformation Movement, which is linked to the anti-Ramaphosa radical economic transformation (RET) faction of the ANC. But as it turns out the panel substantiated the grounds on which Zungula called in a notice of motion for an inquiry into the removal of Ramaphosa.
It has been a long wait to get an independent view on the implications of what happened at Phala Phala. Now that we have it, we have, as DA chief whip Siviwe Gwarube said in a statement, “a defining moment for our constitutional democracy”.
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