Cyril Ramaphosa’s farm, Phala Phala. (Leon Sadiki)
The head of the presidential protection services, Major General Wally Rhoode, has confirmed that he travelled to Windhoek with presidential envoy Bejani Chauke for an undisclosed purpose in June 2020, a fortnight after Namibian authorities nabbed the main suspect in the burglary at President Cyril Ramaphosa’s game farm.
Rhoode says, in his reply to questions from the public protector, that he does not know what Chauke, Ramaphosa’s envoy for Africa, discussed with Namibia’s President Hage Geingob, because he was simply the security detail on the mission.
“Mr Chauke met with President Geingob and I stayed outside the door. Accordingly, I do not know what was discussed.”
It is one of many questions Rhoode’s affidavit does not answer, while providing a generally exculpatory account of himself and Ramaphosa.
Ramaphosa’s spokesperson Vincent Magwenya said he is not in a position to disclose why Chauke met Geingob.
According to Rhoode, he and Chauke crossed the border by car on 25 June at the height of the first wave of the Covid-19 pandemic as air travel was out of the question.
“We drove from Upington to the Naskop [sic: Nakop] border post, where we completed all the necessary paperwork on the South African side. We then drove to No Man’s Land where we waited for the Namibian police to meet us,” he said in his submission.
“They picked us up in a helicopter and took us to Windhoek. We arrived late at night and the next morning we went to see President Geingob.”
By this stage, Rhoode’s efforts to investigate the burglary at the presidential game farm in Limpopo were well underway, with the apparent support of his superiors.
But so were separate investigations by Namibian authorities into the suspect transfer of large sums of money into Namibian bank accounts from South Africa between February and May that year.
Imanuwela David, the man named as the mastermind of the theft of millions of US dollars from the farm, was arrested after illegally crossing the border into Namibia in June, carrying US dollars and Swiss watches.
Justice Minister Ronald Lamola confirmed on Monday that on 13 August, Namibian authorities had sent a request for mutual legal assistance to the South African department of foreign affairs. It asked for help in investigating suspected contraventions of three sections of the Namibian Prevention of Organised Crime Act.
The request was first sent to the special commercial crime unit of the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA), and from there to the justice department’s chief directorate for international legal relations, which advised that it did not comply with the international law on cooperation in criminal matters.
“The request could therefore not be processed at that stage,” Lamola said.
In November, David — who was reportedly born in Namibia but carries a South African passport — was charged with contravening the Immigration Act, fined and given 48 hours to leave the country. He then returned to South Africa.
By then there were whispers in Windhoek that he had been part of a gang that stole money from Ramaphosa but that the South African side was reluctant to extend any official assistance to local police tracking the suspects.
The justice ministry on 21 June, three weeks after former spy boss Arthur Fraser, who was named in the Zondo state capture report, pressed charges against Ramaphosa and Rhoode for allegedly obstructing the course of justice, denied having received a request for help from Namibia in relation to David.
This week Lamola clarified that the request never reached him, and that when asked about it last month, he could not trace it partly because it was stuck at a preliminary stage in the department, partly because the request did not focus on David solely, as suggested by Namibian communiqués on the subject, but mentioned various suspects. Hence it was a case of confusion not a cover-up.
Links: Protection services head Wally Rhoode went to Cyril Ramaphosa’s farm over the burglary with colleague Trevor Fredericks, who is now Arthur Fraser’s business partner.
Rhoode said the national police commissioner had sanctioned his trip.
His account of events starts in Addis Ababa on February 10, when Ramaphosa called him to his hotel room in the Ethiopian capital to inform him that there had been a security breach at this farm.
“The instruction was to alert me to the incident such that I could properly carry out my duties in respect of protecting the president and his family,” he wrote. “It should be noted that President Ramaphosa was chairing the [African Union] summit and was exceptionally busy at that time.”
Presidential protection services staff were sent to the farm and confirmed that two security cameras were compromised. Rhoode and Ramaphosa returned to South Africa where, he again stressed, the president’s schedule was packed.
On 2 March, Ramaphosa summoned Rhoode to his home in Hyde Park and told him that “money from the sale of animals was missing from the residence at the farm”.
The president did not mention an amount.
Rhoode said he told Ramaphosa that he had to inform his superiors and took the information to deputy national police commissioner Sindile Mfazi, who asked him to gather further information and said he would institute a full-scale investigation.
“It is beyond the scope of my work to be allocated matters or case dockets to conduct criminal investigations,” Rhoode said.
He said he, a fellow member of the presidential protection services and one Trevor Fredericks, who has since died of Covid-19, interviewed the domestic helper at the farm, Floriana Joseph, and her brother.
Trevor Fredericks is also the name of a former NPA provincial head of security who later, amaBhungane has reported, became Fraser’s business partner.
Rhoode said of the questioning of the Josephs: “It would be wrong to characterise these interviews as interrogations.”
He said he submitted what he gleaned to Mfazi. “I assumed that Lieutenant Colonel Mfazi would as part of the full-scale investigation follow the prescribed process, including opening a docket if appropriate.”
But, in a separate affidavit, Masemola confirmed that “no case was opened following the alleged theft”, although subsequent to Fraser’s complaint the Directorate for Priority Crime Investigation has been assigned to the matter. The investigation will try to determine the provenance of the money.
It was confirmed this week that despite reports to the contrary, Rhoode remains in his post.
Ramaphosa has in the meanwhile, under threat of subpoena, responded to 31 questions sent to him by the public protector after his second request for more time was denied.
Mfazi too has died of Covid-19 complications.
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