South African President Cyril Ramaphosa at the Zondo commission in his capacity as the president of the ANC. Picture: Neil McCartney
The Constitutional Court (ConCourt) will hear the much-anticipated CR17 campaign case involving President Cyril Ramaphosa on Thursday at 10am, it said in a statement on Wednesday.
The hearing relates to donations made to Ramaphosa’s 2017 ANC presidential election campaign and whether Public Protector Busisiwe Mkhwebane had the scope to investigate the CR17 campaign.
ALSO READ: Ramaphosa makes admission on facing ANC’s integrity committee over CR17 funds
The high court in Pretoria heard an application by the EFF in March to unseal the financial records of the CR17 campaign.
Ramaphosa has stuck to his guns that he was never privy to the financial records of his 2017 ANC presidential campaign.
The campaign’s financial records were sealed in August 2019 by Deputy Judge President Aubrey Ledwaba after Ramaphosa argued they were illegally obtained by Mkhwebane during her investigations.
In July 2019, Mkhwebane released her controversial report on the CR17 campaign.
ALSO READ: CR17 donors shouldn’t be ’embarrassed’ about backing Cyril, says EFF
In it, she found Ramaphosa had breached the executive ethics code by not disclosing a R500,000 donation to the campaign made by Gavin Watson, the late former chief executive of Bosasa, and misled Parliament, as well as that there was “merit” to the suspicion of money laundering.
The report was reviewed and set aside by a full bench of the court last March. Mkhwebane has since approached the Constitutional Court with an application for leave to appeal, with its ruling pending.
In November last year, Ramaphosa said the publication of the bank accounts belonging to donors who funded the CR17 campaign was out of his hands.
But in January, Ramaphosa admitted he should not have asked for his case before the ANC’s integrity commission to be postponed.
Taking the stand in April at the Commission of Inquiry into Allegations of State Capture, Ramaphosa reiterated his claim the CR17 campaign managers took the deliberate decision to shield him from the financial contributions of donors.
Download our app and read this and other great stories on the move. Available for Android and iOS.
