Ramaphosa to meet with public protector about Bosasa ‘donation’

President Cyril Ramaphosa will be meeting with Public Protector Busisiwe Mkhwebane today about a complaint alleging the president misled parliament.

The complaint relates to the payment from hugely controversial facilities management company Bosasa to his campaign for the presidency of the ANC.

Mkhwebane’s office confirmed on January 25 they would be investigating whether Ramaphosa misled parliament about the R500,000 “donation” he received from Bosasa CEO Gavin Watson towards his campaign.

The controversy over Ramaphosa’s Bosasa donation was sparked by a parliamentary question from Democratic Alliance (DA) leader Mmusi Maimane.

Maimane told the president he had evidence of a questionable R500,000 payment made to Ramaphosa’s son, Andile – an accusation Ramaphosa denied.

“It was brought to my attention a long time ago and I proceeded to ask my son what this was all about,” the president said.

“He runs a financial consultancy business and he consults on a number of companies and one of those is Bosasa, where he provides services of entrepreneurship, particularly on the procurement process, advising both local and international companies,” was Ramaphosa’s response at the time.

However, Ramaphosa later changed his story, admitting the money was a donation to his presidential campaign.

In the wake of this revelation, his campaign team said they would refund the money.

In a statement, they denied that Ramaphosa had been part of their fundraising. They insisted he didn’t have a record of who had donated to them and had not intentionally “misled” parliament.

(Compiled by Daniel Friedman. Additional reporting by Makhosandile Zulu, Charles Cilliers, and ANA)

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