Ramaphosa’s answer to parliament ‘remains untrue’, Mkhwebane tells ConCourt

Advocate Muzi Sikhakhane, for public protector Busisiwe Mkhwebane, says the court is at liberty to set aside certain aspects of her report on the funding for Ramaphosa's ANC presidency campaign but not in its entirety.

President Cyril Ramaphosa. Picture: GCIS

Public Protector Busisiwe Mkhwebane wants the Constitutional Court (ConCourt) to review a high court ruling that set aside her CR17 funding report and ordered her to pay a punitive costs order.

Advocate Muzi Sikhakhane, for Mkhwebane, at the ConCourt on Thursday said the court was at liberty to set aside certain aspects of the public protector’s report but not in its entirety.

In her report, Mkhwebane found that Ramaphosa deliberately misled parliament when responding to a question by former DA leader Mmusi Maimane.

Maimane had asked the president during a question and answer session in the national assembly about a R500,000 payment made to his son, Andile, by the former chief executive officer of Bosasa, the late Gavin Watson.

Ramaphosa responded that he was aware of the payment and that it was all above board and part of Andile’s consultancy agreement with the Krugersdorp-based company, which has been mired in controversy over allegations of bribery and corruption spanning more than a decade.

However, the president later amended his oral reply and said the money had been a donation to his ANC presidency campaign.

Sikhakhane said he accepted as a principle and standard that Mkhwebane should have afforded Ramaphosa the right to respond to her remedial action.

He added that Ramaphosa could have responded to these which were “foreshadowed” in a notice Mkhwebane sent to the president that the matter would be referred to authorities.

Sikhakhane said in her remedial action, Mkhwebane was not wrong in referring the matter to the national director of public prosecutions (NDPP) for a decision on whether suspicions of money laundering in Ramaphosa’s ANC 2017 election campaign could be investigated.

Sikhakhane argued that the court may find that Mkhwebane may have gone too far by making certain demands on the NDPP, Shamila Batohi, on the implementation of her remedial action but that the public protector had not been irrational.

Sikhakhane said it was an “insignificant distinction” that in her report she had referred to the Prevention and Combating of Corrupt Activities Act instead of the Prevention of Organised Crime Act in relation to a suspicion of money laundering.

He said despite Ramaphosa later correcting his response in parliament, his initial answer remained false to-date.

Sikhakhane said Ramaphosa could have opted to not give a response to Maimane and chosen to look into the matter, answering at a later stage.

Sikhakhane said he did think it was clumsy of the public protector to use in her report the words “deliberately”, “inadvertently” and “wilfully” interchangeably with regards to Ramaphosa having misled parliament but said Ramaphosa’s initial response “remains untrue today as a fact and so one has to look at this with no sympathetic eye and no loathing eye”.

The proceedings continue: