/ 5 December 2022

Ramaphosa allies close ranks, take on Thabo Mbeki in heated national working committee meeting

President Cyril Ramaphosa
President Cyril Ramaphosa

ANC president Cyril Ramaphosa has one more hurdle to cross in the wake of the damning section 89 panel report, having survived the national working committee (NWC) meeting on Sunday. 

Ramaphosa’s allies closed ranks at the meeting, calling for the ANC’s parliamentary caucus to reject the report, which looked into his conduct relating to the theft of foreign currency from his Phala Phala game farm in 2020.

Ramaphosa recused himself from the meeting. 

Although two ANC insiders said no one expressed outright that Ramaphosa should step aside, presidential hopeful Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma allegedly said Ramaphosa had placed the party in disrepute, a charge that could lead to expulsion.

The insiders said Dlamini-Zuma, along with Bathabile Dlamini and Jeff Radebe, said the report should not be taken lightly by the ANC. 

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Dlamini-Zuma allegedly said Ramaphosa had assured the ANC and South Africans that he would step aside should he be charged with corruption, motivating that the report should be adopted by the party as is, the insiders said. 

“Comrade Bathabile was clear that the report is scathing and damning. She also said that the National Executive Committee (NEC) cannot defend an individual at the expense of the organisation. Lindiwe [Sisulu] said that the ANC had a responsibility to advise the president as a collective. She also said that the matter affects the organisation, not just Ramaphosa, which everyone agreed with,” the insider said.  

Fikile Mbalula and Tony Yengeni are said to have made the point that the NWC would not agree on the matter because some of its members had already told the media that there would be disagreements prior to the meeting.

Yengeni and Dakota Legoete called for the ANC to take a neutral stance when parliament sits on Tuesday to review the report.

Nomvula Mokonyane allegedly said the section 89 panel was meant to generate an opinion regarding the Phala Phala issue, adding that it was now up to parliament to put a process in place to deal with the matter. 

“Mokonyane said the NEC must note the report. She said the ANC cannot call for the party to reject or accept the report because it was never the ANC’s report. She also said it would be the work of an ad hoc to call for oral submissions and interviews.” 

“Comrade Nomvula said the ANC can’t call the report hearsay because Ramaphosa made a submission. She also said all legal and procedural issues aside, the matter is still weighty for the ANC and requires political intervention without trying to put a position for [or] against.” 

Pule Mabe, Nonceba Mhlauli and Mbalula also questioned the conduct of NEC members who had expressed their views in the media before the brief NEC meeting held on Friday. Some NEC members had disagreed with Paul Mashatile, who had said the NEC had to first study the document, which was the reason the meeting ended abruptly. 

Mabe said this created a difficulty in his work. He suggested that the media be “quarantined” from attending the NEC meeting. 

Mhlauli is said to have argued that the report was fundamentally flawed. She said the party could not accept it in its current form because this would set a “terrible precedent” for parliament, the insider said. 

“Comrade Nonceba and comrade [Ronald] Lamola said that the report had gross contradiction. They said that there are multiple examples of inconsistencies.  Lamola gave a strong legal argument,” the party leader said. 

Although it has been widely reported that the NWC rejected the report one insider, who is also a Ramaphosa detractor, said Mashatile could not summarise the outcomes of the meeting because no agreement had been reached on the recommendations to be sent to the NEC for adoption. 

Calls for Thabo Mbeki to toe the line 

According to insiders, former president Thabo Mbeki received backlash from members of the NWC, who questioned his conduct at the NEC meeting on Friday. 

Mbeki is said to have been at the heart of the NEC’s decision to postpone its meeting on the matter after he called for Ramaphosa to be present. 

He allegedly insisted that Ramaphosa attend the meeting to explain himself and face the music, after rumours of his resignation following the release of the report swelled. 

But Ramaphosa allies have not taken this lightly. ANC national chair Gwede Mantashe is understood to have called for the two to meet “off line” to discuss their relationship, as well as Mbeki’s comments at the Friday NEC meeting. 

Insiders with intimate knowledge of the NWC meeting said Mantashe cautioned that the party should avoid a  confrontation between a former ANC leader and a sitting president. 

Those in Ramaphosa’s corner, including Mbalula, Zizi Kodwa, Angie Motshekga and Thandi Modise, also questioned Mbeki’s behaviour, calling him out for being a “hypocrite”. 

“Mbalula was clear that former president [Nelson] Mandela never did this to president Mbeki. He said that when Mbeki was the ANC president, he — with his allies — gave Mandela a dressing down when he came to the NEC to discuss the Aids pandemic. It’s odd that now when he is the elder in the room, he does the same thing he did not want during his terms,” the insider said. 

They added that the NWC also discussed Mbeki’s  participation in the NEC on Sunday, because Mantashe raised concern that a confrontation between the two leaders would “polarise the NEC”. 

“The NEC has the responsibility to make sure that for the decorum of NEC and organisation there is no confrontation between former and current presidents. It would polarise the NEC. If there is a discussion to be had between Ramaphosa and Mbeki, it must happen outside of the NEC. There was also a view that Mbeki must participate in NEC meetings as an ex-officio and not come to address in the meetings,” the party insider added. 

Ramaphosa intends taking the section 89 independent panel’s adverse report on legal review.

The decision was announced by Mashatile at the NEC’s Friday meeting and confirmed by well-placed sources.

Ramaphosa could approach the constitutional court directly, because the report concerns potential impeachment in terms of section 89 of the Constitution. 

Friday’s decision sends the clearest signal yet that he does not intend resigning in response to the findings of the panel.

The panel was established as the first step in an impeachment process, in response to a motion filed by the African Transformation Movement.

The panel found that Ramaphosa has a case to answer about the source and sum total of the foreign currency stolen from his farm in February 2020 and the clandestine efforts to recover it.

It further found that the fact that no docket was opened into burglary, pointed to prima facie evidence that 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.

“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.

There has been extensive debate in legal and political circles as to whether the panel exceeded its narrow remit by basing its conclusions on prima facie rather than “sufficient” evidence that the president may have committed a serious breach of the law.