President Cyril Ramaphosa receives a courtesy call from renowned comedian Trevor Noah ahead of his oral reply to questions in the National Assembly in Cape Town.
DA wanted the president to reveal how much his son got from Bosasa
President Cyril Ramaphosa has declined to tell MPs how much his son Andile made from his business dealings with controversial government service provider African Global Operations, previously known as Bosasa.
This comes after Ramaphosa was once again confronted with another Bosasa document by DA leader Mmusi Maimane related to his son’s dealings with the dodgy entity.
During a question-andanswer session in the National Assembly yesterday, Maimane wielded a copy of a contract between Bosasa and Andile he had obtained through a PAIA (Promotion of Access to Information Act) application.
But the contract was sent to Maimane with the amounts paid out to Andile blacked out or “crossed out”.
“The people of this country deserve to know the truth, they deserve to know what’s being covered up here ... how much did your son benefit from Bosasa, which has had a generally corrupt relationship with your party,” he asked.
Ramaphosa refused to disclose the figure, saying all information related to this issue had been presented to public protector Busisiwe Mkhwebane, who is probing the matter.
“The public protector is busy with this whole matter. All information has been submitted to the public protector by myself, a number of people, as well as my son.
“The contract that he had for doing work for them outside the country is a matter that is now with the public protector and it’s going to be dealt with in that way. And if you care to know, there’s really nothing to hide. The approach was that this is like company confidential information and I went on to say everything should be disclosed to the public protector, so everything has been disclosed to the public protector.”
Ramaphosa, following a similar confrontation from Maimane last year, told the National Assembly that Andile had received money from Bosasa for consultancy services.
He later changed tune in a letter to National Assembly speaker Baleka Mbete, saying the R500,000 payment in question was actually a donation to his ANC presidential campaign, which he did not know at the time of responding to Maimane.
Turning to the issues at Eskom, Ramaphosa said he was faced with a conflict of interest stemming from the involvement of his immediate and extended families in the energy sector while he’s championing the utility’s turnaround.
He dismissed suggestions by EFF MP Hlengiwe Mkhaliphi that his involvement in plans to rescue Eskom from financial ruin while his brother Douglas and billionaire brother-in-law Patrice Motsepe stood to benefit from multibillion-rand renewable energy contracts amounted to a conflict of interests. Renewable energy is punted as a key solution to Eskom’s energy supply problems.
Ramaphosa denied the alleged conflict of interests, saying until Mkhaliphi put the question, he had not been aware that Douglas had interest in the renewable energy space.
Douglas Ramaphosa is a nonexecutive director of Powertech, a private sector electricity firm.
He also said he was not involved in Motsepe’s business affairs.
The people of this country deserve to know the truth