Wednesday 8 June 2022

R60M FARM STASH : RAMAPHOSA ON THE ROPES

South Africans across the political and social spectrum have called for President Cyril Ramaphosa to account and take the citizens of this country into his confidence.

The president is accused of concealing his involvement in kidnapping and money laundering following a burglary at his Phala Phala farm in Limpopo on February 9, 2020, during which robbers of Namibian origin made off with more than R60 million that was hidden under mattresses on his farm.

Having not formally reported this theft to the police, the president is accused of not accounting for large sums of money kept on his farm. When the theft happened Ramaphosa allegedly concealed it and bribed the suspects to keep the matter hidden after he and his team had allegedly used vigilante tactics of interrogation to force a confession from them.

Political analyst and lecturer Levy Ndou cautioned critics mostly from the ANC against being “too desperate” to find the president guilty and labelled a criminal.

“I understand that this matter needs to be given great attention and scrutiny because it involves a head of state. There are certain people in the ruling party who are desperate to see the president being found wrong,” Ndou told “The Star”.

“On the other side, the president himself needs to tell the nation what happened because as the head of state, he has the responsibility to account to the people of South Africa because as a people we want to be led by someone we trust. Speaking at a conference in Limpopo like he has done is not the right way of accounting to the people. He needs to speak directly to the people. We understand that he might not be able to fully account as the matter is still being investigated, but he should at the very least speak directly to South Africans,” Ndou said.

On whether the president should step down pending the investigation and the criminal case laid against him by former head of South African state intelligence Arthur Fraser, Ndou said it would be premature for the president to do so as this matter has not been concluded in a court of law.

“Stepping down must be contextual and should be proven without reasonable doubt that the president has done something wrong. The president had not been formally charged and thus cannot step down based on allegations only,” he said.

Ndou called on South Africans to let the law take its course and law enforcement agencies be given space to do their work without members of society and opposition leaders adding unnecessary pressure to the country’s security cluster, which must fully investigate this matter.

Leader of Black First Land First (BLF) Andile Mngxitama said the silence from the country’s leading civil society and pressure groups shows just how factional and inconsistent the country’s political landscape has been in the past five years since Ramaphosa took over as the president of the country.

“The  entire Zuma Must Go campaign from the churches to so-called civil society has gone to the ground and its self-censoring. This shows that the whole attack on Zuma was political. Solid evidence of contravention of the law by Ramaphosa has not been met with outrage. This lack of reaction from the usually loud so-called anti-corruption civil society shows that their fight against corruption is factional and biased. Zuma was attacked because he stands for radical economic transformation. Ramaphosa is being given a pass because he is their man. BLF has long ago called for Ramaphosa to go. His removal from power is long overdue,” Mngxitama said.

In the meantime, deputy president of the EFF, Floyd Shivambu, has called on Ramaphosa to submit himself to the rule of law, saying his party will no longer recognise him as the president unless he subjects himself to the country’s rules.

“Cyril Ramaphosa is a money launderer and a kidnapper who has no respect for the rule of law. He is no longer a president until he subjects himself to the rule of law,” he said. IOL

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