Mmusi wants Bosasa ‘truth’

President Cyril Ramaphosa’s refusal to disclose the fee Bosasa paid his son, Andile Ramaphosa, for advisory services, showed the president had something to hide, DA leader Mmusi Maimane said yesterday.

During yesterday’s oral question and answer session in Parliament, Maimane asked Ramaphosa to disclose the fee Bosasa paid Andile for “strategic and financial advisory services”. Ramaphosa had previously said he had seen the contract between Andile and Bosasa and it was above board.

Bosasa has been accused of massive fraud and corruption at the ongoing Commission of Inquiry into State Capture, with several high ranking government and ANC officials also implicated.

“The President flatly refused to answer my question, stating that the public protector is considering the matter. This is disingenuous and simply not true. The public protector is investigating whether President Ramaphosa misled parliament and violated the Executive Ethics Code – not what his son earned from Bosasa,” said Maimane in a statement.

He said Ramaphosa was accountable to parliament, not the public protector, and his refusal to disclose the information showed “there’s something serious to hide between the Ramaphosas and Bosasa”.

Maimane wanted Ramaphosa to say exactly how much his son had benefited from his dealings with Bosasa. “It’s an easy answer. It’s a fairly straightforward answer,” Ramaposa responded.

“The public protector is busy with this whole matter and all information has been submitted to the public protector by myself, a number of people as well as my son; so 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 is going to be dealt with in that way. If you care to know, there is really nothing to hide.”

MPs in opposition benches objected fiercely, insisting Ramaphosa quantify how much his son made in relation to Bosasa.

In his statement, Maimane added: “It is clear that President Ramaphosa is compromised when it comes to Bosasa. He received a R500 000 ‘donation’ from a company that has been paying the ANC bribes to secure government tenders for almost two decades. This smacks of ‘Corruption 101’.”

While Ramaphosa has returned the money, Public Protector Busisiwe Mkhwebane was now probing the matter. – ANA