Ngcukaitobi switches legal sides, represents Ramaphosa against Mkhwebane

Advocate Tembeka Ngcukaitobi last week represented the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF), who joined Public Protector Busisiwe Mkhwebane in her unsuccessful attempt to prevent President Cyril Ramaphosa from pausing remedial action against Public Enterprises Minister Pravin Gordhan.

In a dramatic twist, he was back in the same court on Monday, this time representing the president in his successful bid to suspend the remedial action which resulted from a report finding that he had “deliberately” misled parliament about a donation to his successful CR17 campaign for the ANC presidency from hugely controversial facilities management company Bosasa.

Ramaphosa obtained an urgent interim interdict on the implementation of remedial action stipulated by Public Protector Busisiwe Mkhwebane in her report, which found he had misled parliament over Bosasa donations to his CR17 election campaign.

The Sunday Times reported over the weekend that according to presidential spokesperson Khusela Diko, advocates Tembeka Ngcukaitobi and Wim Trengove were briefed to represent Ramaphosa against Mkhwebane in the hearing.

Unlike in her previous court date with Ramaphosa last week, Mkhwebane did not oppose Ramaphosa’s attempt to suspend the remedial action.

Part of the remedial action stipulated that Ramaphosa must reveal all his CR17 funders in parliament. This will now be suspended pending the outcome of his judicial review of Mkhwebane’s report.

READ MORE: Leaked emails raise ‘serious’ questions about Ramaphosa’s donors

The president and the public protector are currently engaged in a dispute over the attempts of Ramaphosa’s lawyers to keep his financial information private.

Ramaphosa’s team wrote to the High Court in Pretoria to request that details linked to banks accounts intended for the CR17 campaign not be made public, arguing that they should only be made available to the court and the respondents.

This follows a News24 report in which emails appeared to show that Ramaphosa’s claim that he had no knowledge of who funded the CR17 campaign was at least partially untrue.

In a statement on Saturday, the presidency confirmed that confidential banking information about the contributors to and recipients from President Cyril Ramaphosa’s CR17 campaign had been leaked to the media.

Spokesperson Khusela Diko said the information, supposedly held only by the public protector, included bank statements of third parties, which had recorded private transactions and which were “strictly confidential”.

Last Thursday, the president was granted an interdict pausing the remedial action Mkhwebane called for him to implement against Gordhan until the outcome of his judicial review of a report that found he had irregularly approved the retirement of former Sars deputy commissioner Ivan Pillay.

UPDATE: This story was updated with the outcome of Ramaphosa’s successful interdict application. 10.52am, Monday, August 12. 

(Compiled by Daniel Friedman)

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