President Cyril Ramaphosa on the campaign trail in October 2021. (Photo by Sharon Seretlo/Gallo Images via Getty Images)
Opposition parties are aiming for consensus on nominations to the panel that will weigh whether President Cyril Ramaphosa should face impeachment in an attempt to narrow the speaker’s discretion in the matter, sources said.
“The thinking is that if everyone nominates the same person then the speaker [Nosiviwe Mapisa-Nqakula] can’t legitimately ignore the nominations,” a senior opposition source said on Friday.
Vuyo Zungula, the head of the African Transformation Movement (ATM), which tabled the motion to impeach the president, confirmed that a loose coalition of 10 parties were working together to limit the influence of the ANC on the section 89 inquiry it has triggered.
In terms of new rules, adopted by parliament in late 2018, an independent panel must consider whether there is a prima facie case that the president should be removed from office for violating the Constitution.
Zungula has submitted that the facts that came to light in the Farmgate scandal saw Ramaphosa breach both section 92 of the Constitution, as well as anti-corruption legislation by failing to report the theft from his Limpopo game farm. The matter was brought to light in May by Arthur Fraser, the former director-general of the State Security Agency.
“The rules state that the speaker is who decides who gets to be on the panel,” Zungala said.
“The experience we had in the other panel, that led to the section 194 committee, is that the speaker used her own discretion, she blatantly ignored the recommendations of the different parties,” he said, referring to the current process weighing the potential impeachment of suspended public protector Busisiwe Mkhwebane.
“We are of the view that the speaker, as a senior member of the ANC, will never be objective. In this instance, she has to be guided by ANC directives, so that is why opposition parties must push for commonality in order for the process to be independent.”
“There is agreement in terms of working together to ensure that there is effective oversight and to ensure that the process is not abused by the ruling party … We do not want to be played by the speaker.”
Zungula said should Mapisa-Nqakula not choose any of the names proposed by the opposition and appoint a three-person panel drawn from the nominations put forth by the ANC, it would suggest bias.
The opposition parties, which include the Democratic Alliance, United Democratic Movement (UDM), Economic Freedom Fighters, Inkatha Freedom Party and African Christian Democratic Party, would therefore call a media briefing next week to set out their suggestions.
Another source said the idea was sound in principle but it was not proving straightforward for parties so diverse to agree on names to submit to Mapisa-Nqakula by the deadline of 1 September.
“Of course we don’t all want the same thing from this process,” this source said.
The names that have been floated include retired constitutional court judge Chris Jafta and former chief justice Mogoeng Mogoeng, although Mogoeng’s presidential ambition has now ruled him out of contention. The DA is mulling proposing another senior former member of the judiciary.
The opposition parties differ in their expectations of the extent to which the section 89 process could see the legislature hold the president to account, and there is a fear among some that the panel, with no inquisitorial powers, could be forced to conclude that there is no prima facie evidence.
Siviwe Gwarube, the deputy chief whip of the DA, said the official opposition had called for an ad hoc committee to be established as it could have the powers to investigate the allegations levelled against the president.
“We don’t want a scenario where there are claims that there is no prima facie evidence,” she said.
“We will, however, decide on who to nominate for the panel and proceed with the process, while mulling over our options for the establishment of an ad hoc committee.
“We are very worried that it is not going to pass the panel.”
But Zungula said he believed the panel had cause, on the admitted facts alone, to recommend that the national assembly consider impeachment. He said the president found himself in breach in sections 96(2)(a) and (b) of the Constitution and section 34(1) of the Prevention and Combating of Corrupt Activities Act.
He said Ramaphosa’s public statement that the stolen money was the proceeds of private livestock sales proved that he had flouted the prohibition in 2(a) on members of cabinet performing private work.
And he flouted section 2(b) by conceding that he did not report the theft to the police but asked the head of the presidential protection service, Wally Rhoode, to look into the crime because, by doing so, he created a conflict between his official duties and his private interests, Zungula contended.
“By instructing the head of his protection unit to do this investigation, he abused public resources for private interests, because that protection unit is there to guard him, not to investigate cases on his personal farm.”
Third, he said, Ramahopsa breached the corruption Act by failing to report a crime involving more than R100 000.
“There is already prima facie evidence. They made it public — there was a tweet from the presidential account — where he confirms that this was not reported because they did not want to cause panic. He is admitting that he violated that section … we know that the amount is more than that, however, he did not report it to the relevant authority.”
Although the panel has a month to submit its report, there is no timeline set out for the speaker to appoint the panel once she has received nominations from political parties.
The opposition parties fear that this could delay the process, possibly beyond the end of the year when Ramaphosa will seek re-election as president of the ANC at the governing party’s conference in December.
Zungula said: “We are concerned because the manner in which this has been handled smells of bias, because you must remember that the DA, ATM and UDM wrote to the speaker asking for various means of accountability measures in the first week of June already. It is only in early August that we got something.”
Mapisa-Nqakula announced last week that a section 89 panel would be appointed. This week, she announced that the joint standing committee on intelligence would consider allegations that police funds were abused to conceal the theft and that deputy state and security minister Zizi Kodwa was party to said cover-up. The committee meets in camera.
[/membership]