President Cyril Ramaphosa has slapped down his rivals for the ANC presidency at the start of a crucial four weeks of reckoning over the Phala Phala debacle that threatens to derail his bid for a second term.
As of late Saturday, Ramaphosa appeared to have outwitted and defused his critics in the ANC’s national executive committee (NEC), who argue he has brought the organisation into disrepute and should step aside as other leaders have been forced to do.
Later this week the independent panel headed by retired judge Sandile Ngcobo will report to parliament on whether there are grounds for impeachment proceedings against him in the National Assembly. Its decision could embolden those who are calling for him to “step aside’’, which would automatically rule him out of the ANC race.
If he survives that, there is still a bruising electoral battle looming next month as the ANC elective conference votes on whether to give its embattled leader a second term.
As the NEC met for a three-day meeting ending today, his adversaries including co-operative governance minister Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma ignored the carefully-crafted consensus around Ramaphosa’s version of the Phala Phala scandal. On Friday they took turns calling for him to step aside.
In a move that his allies said showed he is ready to fight for his political life, Ramaphosa attempted to defuse the Phala Phala controversy by first raising it himself and trying to steal his opponents’ thunder. He is expected to close the meeting today.
His version all along has been that he is co-operating with law-enforcement authorities. He told the integrity commission he had been gagged by the public protector and so could not comment on the matter.
The integrity commission report found that, while the ANC had indeed been brought into disrepute by Phala Phala, it could not find that he had broken any law, or that charges against him were pending.
I think he disarmed a lot of people by stating his defence to parliament. The problem is that the more they delayed in giving a public explanation, the more damage it caused. I think he should’ve given this explanation to the public earlier
The scandal broke in June when it emerged that former spy boss Arthur Fraser had laid charges against Ramaphosa after money, in US dollars, had been stolen from his farm. Fraser claimed that $4m had been stashed in furniture, that Ramaophosa had kept the theft under wraps and that the alleged thieves had been caught, kidnapped, interrogated and bribed to keep quiet about the incident.
Ramaphosa has been criticised by former presidents Thabo Mbeki and Kgalema Motlanthe for refusing to come clean on the scandal.
On Friday Ramaphosa told the meeting that the money stolen from his farm was proceeds from a sale of a buffalo to Sudanese businessman Mustafa Mohamed Ibrahim Hazim. Hazim, according to Ramaphosa, paid $580,000.
He told the meeting that all his business interests had been declared, and that he had not broken any law. The president said he had reported the theft to Maj-Gen Wally Rhoode, the head of the presidential protection services. He said by doing so, he thought he had satisfied the process.
This is the same version Ramaphosa gave to the public protector and is believed to have related to the parliamentary panel.
“I think he disarmed a lot of people by stating his defence to parliament. The problem is that the more they delayed in giving a public explanation, the more damage it caused. I think he should’ve given this explanation to the public earlier,” said an NEC member.
Another ANC leader said Ramaphosa, in his political overview, was frank and told the meeting he was not around when Hazim came to his farm to purchase a buffalo and that he could not have known that those at his farm then kept the money in couches and mattresses.
“The president has finally brought us into his confidence. But the establishment of the truth still lies with the law enforcement agency. The NEC can’t establish the truth. The IC can question him; we can't. But now they can’t do anything because the matter is in court but at least he told us. It should’ve happened a long time ago, this explanation.”
Ramaphosa’s explanation was, however, rejected by several NEC members who called for him to step aside and pressed him on why, if the business was legitimate as he claimed, there was a need to hide the money.
Dlamini-Zuma is said to have led the onslaught on Ramaphosa, saying he should step aside. She is said to have been supported by Tony Yengeni, Tandi Mahambehlala and S’dumo Dlamini.
An NEC member who supports calls for Ramaphosa to step aside said: “Phala Phala has dented the image and integrity of the ANC severely.
"Second, he has made certain admissions in public about what happened.
“Third, in the public domain people are not questioning him; they are questioning the whole ANC and purely on the basis of those reasons he should step aside like everybody else before him.”
Another reason advanced at the meeting by those who not only want the president to step aside, but are against him getting a second term, was that his stay in office would hinder investigations into Phala Phala and impede the work of agencies that should establish what happened.
“The other issue is that as long as he is there, there will be a perception that he is interfering with the investigation. People he has appointed, whether it’s the Reserve Bank or Sars, they will feel obliged to protect him,” the NEC member added.
Saturday’s proceedings were not as heated as Friday’s session.
There were at least 16 members who spoke on the Phala Phala matter on Saturday as part of the discussions on the president’s political overview.
Among them was said to be KZN provincial secretary Bheki Mtolo who called on the ANC to make a final decision on the matter.
Mtolo is said to have told the meeting that the scandal was causing damage to the party’s image and that the ANC has to decide on a specific standpoint.
In an ideal democracy he was supposed to just step aside, but because we have become so filthy, we [have to] protect comrades who are possibly innocent who find themselves in the line of the criminals who want to cast aspersions so that they also sink with you
— Mondli Gungubele
Insiders said Mtolo told the meeting the NEC must decide whether the party should defend the matter or not.
“He said if the decision is that Ramaphosa must be defended in public then so be it, they will do that even though they do not necessarily agree with the decision,” said an insider.
Mtolo is also said to have told the meeting he was unhappy with remarks made by Ramaphosa, at a private event a while back, that he was the president of the Ankole Association and that being the country’s president was just “nice” to have.
This, according to Mtolo, spat in the face of the ANC and the party must take action against Ramaphosa.
Another insider said the who spoke matter on Saturday were “disoriented” after being paralysed by Ramaphosa’s decision to take the NEC into his confidence on Friday.
“They tried to speak on this thing, saying as much as they appreciate that the president spoke about the matter they were not satisfied with what he said as he did not give them anything tangible. But you could just see that they were defeated and were all over the place,” this insider said.
One of Ramaphosa’s chief lieutenants, minister in the presidency Mondli Gungubele, told the Sunday Times that the president needs to be protected from people who want him to step aside even before he was charged.
“In an ideal democracy he was supposed to just step aside, but because we have become so filthy, we [have to] protect comrades who are possibly innocent who find themselves in the line of the criminals who want to cast aspersions so that they also sink with you – the Delilah and Samson story,” said Gungubele.
Despite concerns from former president Thabo Mbeki that the ANC should discuss what to do if the parliamentary panel found that Ramaphosa had a case to answer, treasurer-general Paul Mashatile said the party would not be caught with its pants down.
“That’s one of the issues president Mbeki raised with me as well when we met to say are you as leaders preparing in case there are these eventualities, and it’s something that we have taken heed of as the leadership, and we will be meeting as officials – we meet almost every Monday with the president to discuss some of these difficult questions,” Mashatile said.
“So it’s not like we’re leading blindly. We are having discussions but some of these discussions of course remain confidential. I don’t think we will be caught with our pants down.”
The integrity commission was expected to table its reports late Saturday night.
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