Ramaphosa faces fresh criticism
JOHANNESBURG - President Cyril Ramaphosa is facing fresh criticism after photos emerged showing that he had attended a cattle auction dinner at his Phala Phala farm on Friday night. This, as citizens wait with bated breath for news on his Cabinet reshuffle.
Earlier this week, consultations over new appointments to his Cabinet were postponed after it emerged that Ramaphosa had a cold.
News24 reported that Ramaphosa was said to have been unwell since Tuesday, when he hosted Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni.
But in photos that emerged over the weekend, he was seen posing for photos with a few people and shaking their hands at the Ntaba Nyoni cattle production auction dinner.
Ugandan MP Wilson Kajwengye also tweeted about Ramaphosa hosting them for dinner at his farm.
Ramaphosa is the biggest Ankole farmer in South Africa. His interest in the breed of long-horned cattle started during a trip to Uganda in 2004.
A source close to the presidency said that the president recovered from his cold and opted to leave Pretoria for his farm in Limpopo at 10am on Friday.
The insider said the president was still planning to announce changes to his executive yesterday.
“He just went home. What he does in his spare time is not our business,” he said.
The insider said the event had been planned long ago and was not ‘extraordinary’. ‘The reshuffle will still happen’. A second insider said the president concluded his consultations on the reshuffle and was ready to announce changes.
Respond
The presidency has yet to respond to requests for comment.
DA whip in Parliament, Dean Macpherson tweeted:
“This ‘flu’ saga playing out with Cyril Ramaphosa is really just another day for him. Like Zuma, he has become immune to criticism, ridicule or accountability. The ANC will defend him instead of asking why he lied about being sick and then hosting a dinner for cattle farmers.”
Build One South Africa leader Mmusi Maimane also weighed in on social media, asking “who is fooling who?”
Ntaba Nyoni’s stud Manager Jessica Phatela, who posted a photo of the auction dinner schedule and seemingly streamed some of the night’s proceedings on her Facebook page, told News24 she was unable to talk about the dinner.
“I was not there, so I can not give you details of what happened. I was at the hospital...’’
Auctioneer Johan van der Nest said the dinner went well.
“I did not see the president,” he said. The cattle auction kicked off on Saturday morning.
Last year’s auction of Ankole cattle fetched close to R21 million.
The farm made headlines after former spy boss Arthur Fraser claimed a burglary occurred there in 2020, in which about US$4 million in cash (around R72 million at the current exchange rate) was stolen.
Selling
The money was believed to be earned from the selling of game and cattle.
In December, an independent panel found that Ramaphosa had a case to answer over his conduct in relation to the Phala Phala break-in.
The report paved the way for the president to face an impeachment inquiry over allegations of serious misconduct and the flouting of anti-corruption laws.
While he survived a parliamentary vote on whether he should be subjected to such a potentially career-ending investigation, the Constitutional Court on Wednesday found he had not made a case for it to exclusively decide on his challenge to the report.
This means that if Ramaphosa wanted to persist in his legal challenge to the Ngcobo report, he would now have to do so in the High Court.