Ramaphosa should be nailed in a way that is legally and morally right

Many wrongs don’t make a right. Much is flawed in the Phala Phala matter besetting buffalo trader and President Cyril Ramaphosa. So many wrongs.

The “independent” Section 89 panel, to establish if sufficient evidence exists to warrant a full inquiry by a National Assembly committee into whether Ramaphosa committed serious violations of the constitution or the law, is flawed.

While the panel was being set up, fuss was made about the presence of Richard Calland, associate professor of public law at the University of Cape Town. He was deemed to favour Ramaphosa, so he removed himself.

Similar attention was not paid to his replacement, advocate Mahlape Sello, who is depicted on Twitter enjoying the company of members of the radical economic transformation (RET) brigade, Ramaphosa’s opponents.

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Whether accusations of bias have objective merit is debatable, but pictures paint thousands of words. The panel’s report is flawed, as pointed out by several experts.

For example, Prof Pierre de Vos, after listing other shortcomings, says: “The major weakness of the panel report is that it does not deal adequately with the question of whether any breaches of the constitution or the law or any misconduct were of a serious nature.”

Ramaphosa is flawed, not least in the poor judgment he displayed by ending up in this situation. The ANC is flawed, as is evident from the ruined state of everything it tries to control.

The political opposition is collectively flawed for rushing into this process based on the untested evidence of a former spy boss who is vested in needing to hobble Ramaphosa. Are they being played by RETs?

As Tim Cohen points out in Daily Maverick, unlike the case against Ramaphosa, the case against his accuser, former director-general of the State Security Agency (SSA) Arthur Fraser, is not based on hearsay.

Cohen says the panel report spends “absolutely no time at all, zero, nada, discussing the likely veracity of the claims made by … Fraser upon which the charges brought against Ramaphosa rest. It seems to accept at face value that he did the things Fraser says”.

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This is in contrast to the evidence against Fraser meticulously recorded in Jacques Pauw’s book, The President’s Keepers.

It is feasible that the Phala Phala issue is an attempt by Fraser to stay out of jail. He is in the RET camp.

In his capacity as national commissioner of correctional services, Fraser released former president Jacob Zuma on medical parole, a decision ruled invalid last month by the Supreme Court of Appeal. Zuma has spent decades trying to avoid justice. Other RETs are trying to do the same.

This is the background to Ramaphosa being cornered by the likes of Fraser and the Zuma-supporting African Transformation Movement (ATM), whose chief of policy and strategy, Mzwanele Manyi, is spokesperson for the Jacob Zuma Foundation.

The Section 89 panel was established as result of a motion in parliament by the ATM for Ramaphosa’s removal. RETs are driving this. That’s wrong and dangerous for our future.

If Ramaphosa is to be nailed, it should be done in a way that is legally and morally right. Not at the behest of RETs.