By Lehlohonolo Lehana.
Suspended Public Protector Busisiwe Mkhwebane told the inquiry into her fitness to hold office that there is evidence to show that President Cyril Ramaphosa personally benefitted from his campaign to become ANC leader.
Mkhwebane started with the CR17 report, where she was found to have unlawfully investigated Ramaphosa’s 2017 ANC leadership campaign finances, falsely implicated him in money-laundering and deliberately changed the words of the Executive Ethics Code to find him guilty of dishonesty to Parliament.
She defended her invalidated investigation report into Ramaphosa’s 2017 campaign.
In her 2019 report, Mkwebane found that Ramaphosa deliberately misled Parliament when he answered a question on a R500 000 donation to the campaign from late Bosasa boss Gavin Watson.
She also found that Ramaphosa breached the executive code of ethics and that there was a reasonable suspicion of money laundering.
But the Pretoria High Court found that, on the law and on the facts, Mkhwebane’s finding that Ramaphosa had deliberately misled Parliament was hopelessly flawed and set it aside.
She approached the Constitutional Court, which also affirmed the High Court’s ruling.
“The Public Protector’s report reveals that, on the facts placed before her, she accepted that the President did not wilfully mislead Parliament,” Justice Chris Jafta stated.
This meant that he could not have violated the code. The Public Protector then changed the wording of the code to include “deliberate and inadvertent misleading” so as to match with the facts. Having effected the change in the code, the Public Protector proceeded to conclude that the President had violated the code.
Jafta added that it was “inconceivable” that the word “wilfully” could be read to mean “inadvertent”.
“These words carry meanings that are mutually exclusive. Wilfully cannot include inadvertent. What was done by the Public Protector here exceeded the parameters of interpretation”, he said.
On Thursday she told the Section 194 inquiry that she only investigated after a complaint was lodged by former DA leader Mmusi Maimane, and a second complaint by EFF Deputy President Floyd Shivambu.
MKhwebane says the complaint was related to Ramaphosa’s relationship with a company called African Global Operation, which was formerly known as Bosasa.
She says the complaint was about R500 000, which was paid into the EFG2 trust foundation account by Petrus Venter in October 2017, on the instruction of the late Gavin Watson.
“During my investigation, I received evidence that showed among other things that there were monies transferred to the Cyril Ramaphosa foundation, that Watson was present at the fund-raising dinner hosted by Ramaphosa and that on 17 November 2017, Ms Donne Leigh Nicole, the President’s legal advisor, sent an email to the president regarding fundraising and events.
“In light of the above indisputable facts the version that the president did not know the donors’ identities defied all logic and credibility, it was plainly false on any analysis of the available evidence. So was the theory that he did not personally benefit from the campaign for his own election into the ANC presidency as a sure gateway to the presidency of the country or even as an end in itself,” said Mkhwebane.
Mkhwebane told MPs she also had evidence which indicated that some of the money collected through the CR17 trust account was transferred to the Cyril Ramaphosa Foundation account which belongs to the president.
“The investigation further established that Ramaphosa hosted the dinner functions which had been organised for the donors where he addressed them, which was further proof that he actively participated in the campaign process and knew who the donors were and/or the attendees of the fundraising dinners.
“Furthermore, we had evidence which confirmed regular updates to Ramaphosa on the operations of the CR17 campaign by the campaign managers, his directives to them about payments of the money into the CR Foundation as well as being asked by the campaign managers for him to personally speak to certain donors.”
Mkhwebane called on the committee to endorse the views expressed in the minority judgment, whilst acknowledging the legal status of the majority judgment.
“Based on the facts alluded to above as well as evidence adduced during the investigation, my team came to the conclusion that there was merit to the allegation relating to the suspicion of money laundering, violation of the Executive Ethics Code and that the president personally benefited from the CR17 campaign donations,” she said.
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Video Courtesy of Parliament.