Battle rages over secrecy of CR17 funding records

MEMBERS of the CR17 funding committee who campaigned for President Cyril Ramaphosa to become ANC president in 2017 have asked the high court in Pretoria to reject an application by the EFF to release the names of the campaign’s funders.

In their responding affidavits to Judge Cassim Sardiwalla, the CR17 team, Ria Tenda Trust and Linkd Environmental Services argued that a full Bench of the high court had already set aside the findings of a report released by Public Protector Busisiwe Mkhwebane into the CR17 campaign.

Wim Trengove, acting for the three parties, said the EFF only lodged its application after the high court ruled against Mkhwebane’s report, which it said was illegal and unlawful.

The parties also said that the EFF application to unseal the records was conducted late and thus had no merits.

Further commenting on the delays in lodging the application, Trengove said Deputy Judge President Aubrey Ledwaba had already sealed the documents 19 months ago.

“The EFF had access to these documents but chose not to appeal the decision of the Deputy Judge President until March last year when the full Bench ruled that the investigation of the public protector into the CR17 funds was unlawful. The court found that the records are the fruits of an unlawful investigation,” Trengove said.

He further expressed his dismay that the EFF chose to lodge their latest application in August last year and in their heads of argument chose to attack Deputy Judge President Ledwaba.

“They were given access to the documents and Judge Ledwaba’s decision in 2019. They did nothing about it. They did not initiate a process to apply for the seal to be lifted,” Trengove said.

Trengove asked the court to reject the EFF comparison of their case to that of My Vote Counts.

In their application – which the Constitutional Court ruled in favour of – My Vote Counts argued that funding for political parties contesting for all spheres of government had to be made public. While the Constitutional Court endorsed that application, Trengove argued that the CR17 case was different.

The EFF is expected to respond to CR17 submissions today.

Earlier yesterday, the EFF argued that it was a registered political party that has the rights in terms of section 19(1)(c) of the Constitution to ask that the documents must be open for the public to access them.

“One of the reasons is that an amount of R500 000 was made to the CR17 by one such Gavin Watson. We all know what notoriety the name has. It is related to Bosasa. This triggered former DA leader Mmusi Maimane to ask Ramaphosa a question about this donation,” said advocate Ishmael Semenya SC, who represented the EFF.