ANC ‘won’t act’ on Ramaphosa, says analyst

ANC senior structures – the national executive committee (NEC) and the national working committee (NWC) – have the power to act against President Cyril Ramaphosa but they won’t do anything because the ANC president has dominant support in them and there is no concrete evidence of wrongdoing by the President, says a political analyst.

Prof Dirk Kotzé, from the University of South Africa’s politics department, said neither would the ANC integrity commission (IC) act because the commission did not have strong powers. The commission also has no history of taking stern action against senior party members.

“Most people would say Ramaphosa supporters are in a dominant position in the NWC and the NEC, so those structures won’t act against him,” Kotzé said.

“Instead of taking action, the NWC, which reports to the NEC, commended Ramaphosa’s decision to voluntarily present himself to the IC, which it said was in line with ANC policy.

“It said the party’s top six national officials undertook to process the matter expeditiously and to report to the next NWC. The NWC will deliberate on the matter further once it has received a report from the national officials.”

Kotzé said that theoretically the radical economic transformation (RET) members of the party loyal to former president Jacob Zuma will continue their attempts to frustrate Ramaphosa, including even using the future national general council (NGC) of the party to call for a no-confidence motion against him, but that was bound to fail.

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Ramaphosa will be emboldened by the arrests of senior Transnet executives and the Gupta brothers, Atul and Rajesh, in connection with allegations of corruption and state capture as that will be to his credit after being criticised for taking no visible action against graft, Kotzé said.

“So far there is no evidence that Ramaphosa has done anything criminal. No public money from a government department or the president’s office has been stolen, nor has he received money from people to buy favours from him and nobody really knows how much was involved.

“There is nothing illegal if someone paid R150 000 to his domestic worker because there is no law against paying someone in cash. So I find it very difficult to understand these allegations,” Kotzé said.

The allegations against Ramaphosa emanated from a claim by the former director-general of the State Security Agency, Arthur Fraser, that Ramaphosa concealed a burglary at his Phala Phala farm in Limpopo in which an amount of $4 million (R62 million) was allegedly stolen.

He claimed that instead of reporting the incident to the police, Ramaphosa bribed the thieves to buy their silence.

The Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) has called for Ramaphosa to step down immediately or face the same fate as his predecessor, Jacob Zuma. EFF leader Julius Malema, who issued the ultimatum, said Ramaphosa had failed to prove to South Africans that he is a worthy president and should vacate the office.

Malema is an ally of Zuma with whom he attended a tea party at Nkandla where they allegedly plotted a strategy to oppose Ramaphosa. He said a legal team had been assembled to find constitutional ways to force Ramaphosa to resign.

– ericn@citizen.co.za