Maimane to meet with public protector over Ramaphosa’s Bosasa imbroglio

On Saturday morning, DA leader Mmusi Maimane said in a statement he would be meeting with Public Protector Busisiwe Mkhwebane over the involvement of President Cyril Ramaphosa and his family with disgraced facilities management company Bosasa.

He said it had been “five months to the day since President Ramaphosa misled Parliament about the conflict of interest between him, his son, Andile Ramaphosa, and Bosasa – the company that has been actively bribing ANC officials for almost 20 years”.

His meeting with Mkhwebane would take place on Tuesday so that he could be updated on the investigation into Ramaphosa and his son’s relationship with Bosasa, “and the clear conflict of interest that exists between the Ramaphosa family and Bosasa”.

Maimane said he had also written to the state capture commission chair, Deputy Chief Justice Raymond Zondo, to ask for the president to be subpoenaed to appear before the commission over his and his family’s alleged conflict of interest with Bosasa.

“Ramaphosa needs to account to the commission and the nation as to the ever-growing list of transactions, contracts and business dealings between his family and Bosasa.”

He listed Ramaphosa’s R500,000 “donation” from Bosasa CEO Gavin Watson towards his campaign to be elected ANC president; that Andile Ramaphosa had a contractual agreement with Bosasa for “advisory services”, through which he earned over R2 million in a little over a year; that Ramaphosa had told Parliament he had seen that contract, and that it was all supposedly above board; and that Andile Ramaphosa’s business partner, a Chinese energy company, attempted to secure a R400 million kickback from an Eskom loan in January last year – at a time when his father Cyril Ramaphosa was heading up state-owned entities, including Eskom.

“There remains much we don’t know. And the Zondo commission is best placed to seek the truth in this matter.”

He added that he had requested to view the president’s declaration of interests since his election in February 2018.

“Section 2.3(d) of the Executive Ethics Code states that members of the Executive may not ‘Use their position or any information entrusted to them, to enrich themselves or improperly benefit any other person.’

“If the president has failed to disclose any conflict of interest as it relates to his son, then the public protector must investigate whether he has breached the Executive Ethics Act.

“We cannot ignore the fact that Bosasa is a company that has been bribing ANC politicians for the last two decades. Bosasa contracts with the ANC government total over R10 billion. Like Zuma-Gupta, the Ramaphosa-Bosasa relationship follows the standard ANC triangle of corruption: the ANC-in-government gives lucrative tenders to connected cronies who bribe officials, which in return funds the ANC.

“The truth is there has been no change in the ANC since the election of Cyril Ramaphosa as president. In fact, former President Kgalema Motlanthe said it all: the ANC is in worse shape now under Cyril Ramaphosa than it was before.

“There remains a circle of secrecy between the Ramaphosa’s, ANC and Bosasa. It is crucial this secrecy is broken and South Africa is told the full truth about this corruption scandal involving the president.”

(Edited by Charles Cilliers)

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