Retired chief justice Sandile Ncgobo (left) hands his report to speaker Nosiviwe Mapisa-Nqakula. (GCIS)
President Cyril Ramaphosa’s political survival is swaying in the wind after the panel headed by former chief justice Sandile Ngcobo found that he has a case to answer on the source and sum total of the foreign currency stolen from his farm in February 2020 and the clandestine efforts to recover it.
Barring a resignation, it will come down to the numbers in the National Assembly, where he would need to avert the adoption of a resolution to the effect that the preliminary work of the panel must continue in an impeachment inquiry.
The report landed with seismic force because few expected the panel to find sufficient evidence in Arthur Fraser’s unproven allegations that the president committed a serious breach of the Constitution and anti-corruption laws.
In fact, it found cause for a case to answer not only in the narrative Fraser told the police, but in the many holes in the president’s version of what happened two-and-a-half years ago.
“The president has rightly criticised the evidence contained in Mr Fraser’s statements as full of hearsay, in particular, information from undisclosed sources,” the report noted.
“But some aspects of the evidence proffered by the president, in particular, pertaining to the source of foreign currency is also hearsay.”
The panel did not have investigative powers, nor did it have insight into the ongoing investigations by the police or the South African Reserve Bank. It took the position that it could not blindly accept Fraser’s allegations in the hope that it may “and probably will” be verified, but nor could it ignore them.
“Fairness dictates otherwise.”
Fraser claimed that tens of millions of US dollars was smuggled into South Africa by special presidential adviser Bejani Chauke from countries in Africa and the Middle East.
According to him, an undisclosed sum was hidden in Chauke’s home in Hyde Park before it was transferred to Phala Phala with the help of General Wally Rhoode, the head of the presidential protection service, and concealed in a sofa.
On Ramaphosa’s version, Sudanese businessman Mustafa Mohamed Ibrahim Hazim paid $580 000 in cash to a lodge manager at Phala Phala for some 20 substandard cattle on Christmas Day 2019.
The money was put in a safe but later moved by the manager, Sylvester Ndlovu, to a private room where it was hidden inside a leather sofa, the president said, because he fretted that too many people had access to the safe.
The panel had trouble accepting this account and pointed to a number of improbabilities, among them the likelihood of a large number of people having the keys or code to the safe.
“We think that the president has a case to answer on the origin of the foreign currency that was stolen, as well as the underlying transaction for it,” it said.
“There are weighty considerations which leave us in substantial doubt as to whether the stolen foreign currency is the proceeds of sale.”
These include that according to Ramaphosa’s submission, he does not have personal knowledge of the source of the money (which would have converted to R8.7 million at the time), but relied on what Ndlovu told him as well as a written acknowledgement of receipt.
But the panel also had difficulty accepting that this receipt was conclusive evidence of the sale, or finding a firm explanation as to why the money was stored in the sofa and kept there for more than 40 days.
The president’s account on this score “is vague and leaves unsettling gaps”, the panel said, and does not reply to lingering questions as to how much was lost and why it was not banked at the earliest opportunity.
“These questions must of course be viewed in light of the behaviour of Mr Hazim, who has left his buffaloes on the farm for over two and a half years.”
According to Ramaphosa, the only foreign currency cash amount was $580 000 (not $4 million, as Fraser claimed). There are two possibilities, the panel said. Either all of it or some of it was stolen. It seems from what Ndlovu told Ramaphosa, that everything was taken.
“Yet, no one is prepared to tell us that. We are left to speculate about how much was stolen.
“The president has not told us why Mr Ndlovu has not made any statement. Nor has he explained to us why the buffaloes are still at the farm,” the panel said, concluding that all of this raised “substantial doubt about the sale transaction itself”.
There are two individuals who can remove this doubt — Ndlovu and Hazim — but the president inexplicably failed to ask them to do so.
“A simple confirmatory affidavit from either of these individuals would have been sufficient to put our minds at rest. There is no explanation as to why these confirmatory statements could not be provided as both Mr Chauke and General Rhoode did.”
A further problem for Ramaphosa is that the panel found that his version and that of Rhoode did not align as to how the latter came to learn of and later investigate the theft. Rhamphosa himself gave two contradictory accounts, one to parliament and one to the panel.
In September, he told the National Assembly that he heard of the theft in February while he was in Addis Ababa with Rhoode and informed him.
By a thread: President Cyril Ramaphosa’s political future is uncertain. (Delwyn Verasamy/M&G)
Ramaphosa was responding to a question from Economic Freedom Fighters leader Julius Malema and trying to refute an accusation that he broke the law by failing to report the theft. He reported it promptly, he said, by turning to the police officer who was at this side.
But to the panel, he submitted that he only learnt of a security breach while in Ethiopia, and some time in the second half of that month travelled to the farm to establish what had happened.
He then only informed Rhoode after he returned from the farm to his Hyde Park home.
According to Rhoode, the president told him what had happened on 2 March 2020.
“We are unable to accept that General Rhoode was only told of the theft of foreign currency in March 2020 and at Hyde Park,” the panel said.
“This is inconsistent with the statements made by the president in parliament… We find, as a matter of probability, that General Rhoode was told of the theft of foreign currency while the president and General Rhoode were in Addis Ababa.”
The panel went on to reject Rhoode’s efforts to distance himself from the subsequent hunt for the suspects, saying: “The only police official who conducted an investigation following the burglary and theft is General Rhoode and his team.”
No docket was opened, which suggested the president broke the law by failing to report a theft of more than R100 000 because anti-corruption legislation imposed a duty to do so.
“Nor was it reported to any South African Police Service station as no case was opened or a docket registered for this offence. In our view this information, prima facie, discloses that the president violated section 34(1) read with section 34(2) of [the Prevention and Combating of Corrupt Activities Act],” the panel said.
This failure to report the burglary also led to the conclusion that the investigation undertaken by Rhoode was intended to remain clandestine.
“Viewed as a whole, the information presented to the panel, prima facie, establishes that: there was a deliberate intention not to investigate the commission of the crimes committed at Phala Phala openly.”
The panel dwelled on the detailed allegations that help was enlisted for Rhoode’s investigation at the highest levels in Namibia, where the alleged burglary mastermind was detained.
It found prima facie evidence that Ramaphosa asked for help from his Namibian counterpart, President Hage Geingob, to trace the burglary suspects and that Rhoode crossed the border in pursuit of them.
Rhoode has conceded that he travelled to Windhoek with Chauke but claimed he was simply the security detail on the mission and did not know its purpose.
The panel was not convinced, and said the request to Namibian police to “handle the matter with discretion” further confirmed the intention to keep the investigation covert.
The 87-page report concluded that Ramaphosa has a case to answer on the four charges contained in the impeachment motion tabled by the African Transformation Movement.
These were that he violated the Constitution by performing paid work outside his official functions and by giving Rhoode unlawful instructions to investigate a crime, thrust himself into a situation of conflict between his private interests as a game farmer and his official responsibilities and acted in a manner inconsistent with his office.
The panel rejected Ramaphosa’s submission that the farm was running at a loss as irrelevant.
“Paid work remains paid work irrespective of whether the entity may be running at a loss. The president has not provided us with any record showing that the business is running at a loss.”
Hence, it said, it was satisfied that the evidence submitted to it pointed, prima facie, to a violation of section 96(2)(a) read with section 83(b) of the Constitution.
The report will be debated by the National Assembly next Tuesday, with a simple majority required for a resolution to carry.
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