Ramaphosa comes out swinging
• President gets NEC backing and goes for the jugular with court challenge of panel’s findings
President Cyril Ramaphosa has come out guns blazing, launching a Constitutional Court challenge that tore into the parliamentary report that put his political life in jeopardy.
This was as his backers in the ANC’s national executive committee (NEC) rallied behind him by resolving that party MPs must not support the adoption of the section 89 panel report in parliament on Tuesday.
Ramaphosa on Monday afternoon filed legal papers, seeking to have the recommendations of the report into a theft at his Phala Phala game farm declared unlawful and invalid.
He wants the report of the three-member panel led by retired chief justice Sandile Ngcobo reviewed and set aside by the Constitutional Court. It recommends that Ramaphosa face an impeachment inquiry.
In his affidavit, he said the panel to misunderstood determine if “its sufficientmandate evidence exists” and instead understood it to mean the inquiry needed to establish “whether there is prima facie case against the president”.
He launched into the panel members, accusing them of failing to reject what he says was inadmissible evidence made public by former spy boss Arthur Fraser.
“I am advised that sufficient evidence means enough evidence,” he said. The panel could not distinguish between “information and evidence”.
“If anything, it is chargeable to describe Mr Fraser’s allegations as hearsay. They are better characterised as conjecture and speculation without a single fact to underpin them,” says Ramaphosa in his affidavit.
He says the panel of three legal experts did not apply any of the mandatory legal provisions about the admissibility of evidence that may have been unlawfully obtained.
In his affidavit, Ramaphosa asserts that the panel never properly engaged with the hearsay nature of Fraser’s allegations and failed to apply the legal rule that hearsay evidence must be excluded.
He then goes for the jugular:
“Mr Fraser’s allegations are just that: allegations, which are based on speculation, fiction and conjecture. They are not evidence. It is understandable how the panel ended up like this – it drew no distinction between evidence and information. Yet the rules of parliament require it to focus on evidence.”
Ramaphosa also attacks the provenance of Fraser’s crime intelligence report.
“The panel does not explain the origins of the crime intelligence report, how it came to be in Mr Fraser’s possession, or how it has any probative value despite its redactions.”
The inadmissible items included an audio tape and a report from the Namibian police, both coming from Fraser.
“In situations like this, there is every incentive to hoodwink decision-makers to make rash decisions based on a half-truth. This is what appears to have happened.”
Legal expert Lawson Naidoo said “it’s a comprehensive set of papers”.
He said Ramaphosa’s argument raised an important point in that the panel report “does not really address the issue of the misconduct, that if any, it must be serious, and it must be done deliberately and in bad faith.
“And very little in the report speaks to those issues.”
The ANC president on Monday also received a boost when his party’s NEC, its highest decision-making body between conferences, decided to push back against the report.
The NEC met at Nasrec, Johannesburg, on Monday and decided that ANC MPs should push against calls for the section 89 report to be adopted by the National Assembly, which is set to reconvene on Tuesday.
“We are not supporting a motion that will lead to the impeachment of the president,” ANC treasurer-general Paul Mashatile said.
“We are not preventing the president [Ramaphosa] from accounting … There are other processes currently under way,” Mashatile said in response to media questions about potentially shielding Ramaphosa from accountability.
Ramaphosa attended the NEC meeting on Monday, but recused himself after presenting his political report to sign off on an affidavit later submitted to the Constitutional Court.
His detractors in the party, who had previously publicly called for him to resign over the Phala Phala scandal, were outnumbered at the meeting, according to insiders.
“The NEC resolved that the ANC will vote against the adoption of the report of the section 89 panel, given the fact that it is being taken on review,” Mashatile said.
“We allowed many of the comrades to speak throughout the day. Members agreed it is the prerogative of the president to take a report under review unanimously. Secondly, it was the report, some comrades feel it should be rejected, others take it under review, but it was agreed we would reject it.”
Parliament’s programming meeting was scheduled for 9pm on Monday.
A parliamentary official said it was unlikely Tuesday’s debate would go ahead, especially as the convention was for the house not to debate matters that were still being processed in court. Also, some parties wanted all the MPs to be physically present instead of a hybrid system allowing some to join virtually.
Some parties wanted a secret ballot, which would require some preparation.
The bid by the African Transformation Movement to have the vote by secret ballot was declined by the speaker of the National Assembly, Nosiviwe Mapisa-Nqakula, citing parliamentary processes.
HIS DETRACTORS IN THE PARTY, WHO HAD PREVIOUSLY PUBLICLY CALLED FOR HIM TO RESIGN, WERE OUTNUMBERED AT THE MEETING