President Cyril Ramaphosa has said the foreign currency stolen from his Phala Phala farm in late 2020 came from the sale of 20 buffalo to a little-known Sudanese businessman.
In his first official response to the allegations that erupted in the wake of the burglary, first exposed by Jacob Zuma ally Arthur Fraser in June, Ramaphosa also denied allegations of alleged torture of the perpetrators as well as accusations that hush money was paid to conceal the events. This is contained in his previously unseen November 6 submission to the parliamentary panel investigating whether he has a case to answer, which was chaired by former chief justice Sandile Ngcobo.
In the documents submitted to the panel, Ramaphosa suggests the amount stolen from Phala Phala was $580,000 — far less than the $4m reported when the saga first erupted. He says the money came from the sale of 20 buffalo to Mustafa Mohamed Ibrahim Hazim, a citizen of Sudan who purchased the animals for cash on Christmas Day in 2020.
The documents claim lodge manager Sylvester Ndlovu accepted the money from Hazim and initially stored it in a safe at a conference centre on the farm. However, fearing that other workers had access to the safe he moved the money to Ramaphosa’s private residence on the property.
“He stored the money below cushions of a sofa in a spare bedroom that is hardly ever used, inside my private residence,” Ramaphosa says in his submission, which states he learnt of the buffalo sale only on December 26, when he arrived at Phala Phala. “He thought it was the safest place, as he believed nobody would break into the president’s house.”
Though Ramaphosa’s submission refers to an attached receipt for the buffalo sale marked “MCR1”, the attached document appears to be nothing more than a signed affidavit by Ndlovu acknowledging the sale. While the document, which is on a Phala Phala letterhead, is dated December 25 2020, it does not appear to have been signed by Hazim.
Ramaphosa’s submission also makes no mention of whether the 20 buffalo allegedly purchased by Hazim were transported off of the property after their 2020 Christmas Day sale.
While his alleged failure to declare the receipt of foreign currency from Hazim is not included in any of the charges he faces, Ramaphosa says he is co-operating with Reserve Bank inquiries on the matter. He also denies breaching tax laws.
Ramaphosa also denied the first of the four charges he faces, which alleges that he was undertaking paid work by running Phala Phala as a business in violation of the constitution. The Executive Members Ethics Act requires that members of the executive not receive payment for work outside their state roles, which is why Ramaphosa put his business interests in a blind trust when he became president in 2014.
“I do not perform paid work for Ntaba Nyoni [the legal entity that operates as Phala Phala Wildlife],” Ramaphosa said. “I am not on any payroll other than that of the presidency.”
Ramaphosa also denied the second charge against him that he violated the law by reporting the Phala Phala robbery to the head of his VIP protection unit, Maj-Gen Wally Rhoode, instead of the Directorate for Priority Crime Investigation (the Hawks). The president claims he complied with the law by reporting the theft to the head of his protection unit, which falls under the SA Police Service (SAPS), and that he was not in control of what transpired afterwards.
“I expected that he would do all that is necessary and take any other steps required in response to the information I had shared with him,” Ramaphosa said of Rhoode’s involvement. “The lack of a case number is not a matter over which I have any control.”
On the third charge, which alleges Ramaphosa is guilty of serious misconduct for involving Rhoode in the investigation, he again reiterated that this was in accordance with the law, given that the Presidential Protection Service falls under SAPS. He also denied allegations of torture of the burglars; money supposedly paid to conceal the Phala Phala events; and that a domestic worker involved in the incident had been rehired.
“The affected domestic worker has not been reinstated,” said Ramaphosa. “She was in any event a temporary worker at the time of the theft and not in permanent employment.”
The fourth charge faced by Ramaphosa also accuses him of serious misconduct for allegedly giving unlawful instructions to Rhoode to investigate a burglary at a private residence.
“I requested Maj-Gen Rhoode to attend to this incident insofar as it was within his roles and responsibilities to do so,” said Ramaphosa. “Rhoode subsequently told me that he had been instructed by the then deputy national commissioner of police, Lt-Gen Mfazi, to conduct a preliminary enquiry with a focus on my safety and threats to me, and thereafter to report back to him.”
Ramaphosa denies instituting a “hunt” for the Phala Phala burglars and says he issued no instructions for this to take place.
“I did not instruct Gen Rhoode to recoup the lost money,” he says. “I know nothing of any attempts to do so.”
Ramaphosa also dismissed calls for his removal as president. In terms of the constitution, only the National Assembly may remove a president for a serious violation of the constitution or law, serious misconduct or the inability to perform functions of the office. A two-thirds majority is required and MPs would first have to debate Ngcobo’s report and vote on it.
“It is unclear in charges 3 and 4 whether the allegation is that I committed a serious violation of the constitution, or the law, or serious misconduct,” the president said. “This renders these charges defective in my respectful view.”
The independent panel handed its final report on the Phala Phala saga to parliament on Wednesday. The National Assembly is set to debate the report on December 6, just 10 days before the ANC’s 55th elective conference.
theunisseng@busineesslive.co.za
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