President Cyril Ramaphosa is expected to file papers as early as Monday morning to challenge the Section 89 panel’s findings on the Phala Phala matter, a source close to the president said.
While Tuesday’s parliamentary sitting to discuss and vote on the report could go ahead regardless, it is expected that Ramaphosa’s supporters in the party caucus will reject the panel’s report which the president’s confidantes believe is flawed.
The report was authored by an independent committee headed by retired chief justice Sandile Ngcobo and appointed by parliament to advise whether there were any grounds to impeach Ramaphosa after there was an alleged attempted cover-up of the theft of a large amount of dollars from his Phala Phala game farm.
Ramaphosa was expected to get guidance from the ANC’s National Working Committee at its meeting on Sunday, which he attended, as well as from the National Executive Committee (NEC) which is expected to meet on Monday and which he is also expected to attend.
Ramaphosa is said to have stayed away from the NEC meeting on Friday to give members the chance to discuss the report freely.
Law professor Richard Calland said while a number of processes ahead are still unpredictable, it was “essential politically and legally that [Ramaphosa] has the report reviewed” for the sake of the credibility of his fight against state capture.
“I think that what has happened over the last two days is a recognition by him and by a significant number of people within the ANC that it would be a mistake, and unfair and not helpful to the constitutional principle, for a president to be recalled or resign on the basis of a flawed report,” he said.
This was why the political process would have to take notice of the legal process — likely to be a judicial review of the report.
Calland said unless the litigants sought a suspension of the parliamentary process, a debate on the report could still go ahead.
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