ANC MPs TURNING ON CR
Money donated to ANC ‘siphoned by Ramaphosa’
PRESIDENT Cyril Ramaphosa is now facing deep divisions from within his party the ANC in Parliament, following the Section 89 panel report into the farm heist scandal that has mired the president in corruption.
A band of ANC MPs has vowed to vote against Ramaphosa when a vote of no confidence is tabled against him in the National Assembly.
ANC MP and Dirco portfolio chair Supra Mahumapelo told The Star that he couldn’t betray the people who took him to Parliament.
“I’m a public representative; I took an oath to serve the people of South Africa. After a panel has found against Ramaphosa, how can I defend him? Defending him would be showing the voters the middle finger. I’m bound by my oath, conscience, and the voters,” Mohumapelo said.
Ramaphosa has been widely criticised for snubbing the ANC national executive committee (NEC) meeting scheduled on Friday, which saw the meeting abruptly cancelled.
ANC national spokesperson Pule Mabe said they started with the national working committee (NWC) meeting yesterday morning, and because NWC officials comprising the party’s Top Six leadership and 20 NEC members, met on Saturday, they thought it would be prudent to shift the NEC meeting to allow the NWC sufficient time to reflect on issues.
“The president was in the NWC meeting in the morning, and he confirmed to the media that he came to the NWC meeting, because he does sit in on meetings of the NWC. He requested to be recused because the issues being discussed revolve around the Section 89 report, which involves Ramaphosa. He will be coming to attend the NEC today,” Mabe said.
On Wednesday, retired Chief Justice Sandile Ngcobo’s three-member independent Section 89 panel found that Ramaphosa had violated his oath of office in handling the break-in and theft of a huge amount of money in US dollars from his Phala Phala game farm in Limpopo.
The panel this week exposed glaring inaccuracies in Ramaphosa’s account of how much was stolen at his Phala Phala farm, and ultimately found that the president had a case to answer in regard to the saga.
The panel cited an investigator in an audio clip who put it to a suspect that they knew that the suspects had taken about “20 million” to Namibia, albeit without clarity on the currency.
“Although in the audio clip is it not entirely clear, what currency they were referring to when the amount of 20 million was mentioned.
“Whether the investigator was referring to dollars or rand, this amount is far more than the $580 000 that was alleged to have been hidden inside the sofa.
“If what the suspect and the investigator were saying is true about the money stolen, then there was more than $580 000 hidden in the sofa. The question is, where did this additional foreign currency come from?” read the panel’s report.
In his submission to the panel, Ramaphosa said the stolen money was the proceeds of a sale to a Sudanese national whom he identified only as “Mr Mustafa Mohamed Ibrahim Hazim”. He said Hazim came to the farm to view buffaloes that were for sale and paid $580 000 in cash to a Mr Ndlovu for the purchase of a number of buffalo.
According to sources with intimate knowledge of the matter, Ramaphosa, during his state visit to Saudi Arabia in July 2018, learned that that country made a $20 million donation to the ANC, which they referred to as Mandela’s party.
Later, another $20m was donated to the party, bringing Saudi Arabia’s total donation to $40m.
The donations were allegedly made on the condition that the South African government did not give any form of support to Qatar.
Relations between Saudi Arabia and Qatar have historically been turbulent due to disagreements over the rightful ownership of several territories.
The sources said that the Saudis allegedly also expected an exclusive Saudi-South Africa oil deal through an oil refinery to be built in Richards Bay, and backed by state-owned Saudi Aramco.
will this week be running a series exposing the Phala Phala farmgate scandal.