EFF to try their luck at ConCourt after high-court loss over CR17 funds

Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) leader Julius Malema on Monday said his party would approach the Constitutional Court (ConCourt) to appeal last week’s high court ruling, which dismissed their bid to reveal the donors who financially contributed to President Cyril Ramaphosa’s 2017 campaign for the ANC presidency.

“The court has given no acceptable reasonable explanation as to why the president’s ascendency to the presidency is not of public interest in terms of those who funded him, essentially conducting a preliminary capture of the state,” Malema said.

He was speaking in Johannesburg during a virtual event to celebrate the EFF’s eighth birthday anniversary.

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The EFF’s commander-in-chief said the party had to speak against the refusal of the Pretoria High Court to unseal the documents belonging to Ramaphosa’s campaign, popularly known as the CR17 campaign.

Malema claimed, without any evidence, that the donors of the campaign were benefiting from state contracts and had access to state-owned enterprises (SOEs).

“This becomes worse in the context of a pandemic, where pharmaceutical companies that were part of this CR17 documents are now exclusive producers for SA’s vaccine programme.

“There is no doubt that the CR17 documents are of public interest and we will approach the Constitutional Court directly to ensure that these documents are unsealed,” he said.

Despite raising questions about the independence of the judiciary, Malema said his deputy Floyd Shivambu
and a majority of the party’s senior leaders pushed for the judgment to be appealed at the ConCourt.

“Although we suspect what could be the possible outcome given the current arrangement, we are prepared to die with our boots on.

“We never retreat on a battlefield, we fight a battle to its logical conclusion. And we will fight this one to its logical conclusion [and] we do not care what happens after that,” he said.

Last Tuesday, the high court dismissed the EFF’s case with costs.

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