Mbalula and Kodwa got payments from CR17 campaign – report

A report in City Press alleges that, according to leaked bank statements circulating, Transport Minister Fikile Mbalula and Deputy Minister of State Security Zizi Kodwa both received R40,000 each from President Cyril Ramaphosa’s succesful CR17 campaign for the ANC presidency.

These payments were reportedly made on the same date, as well as one of the same amount to a man called Jama Mchunu.

Kodwa denied receiving any money from the “so-called CR17” while Mbalula declined to comment.

According to The City Press report, there is unhappiness among some of those who were paid to lobby for the campaign after leaked details of how the CR17 funds flowed show a massive discrepancy in the amount paid to some campaigners compared to others.

Questions have also been asked about why some of the campaigners’ companies were paid in addition to the funds that were deposited into their personal bank accounts.

The full story is available in today’s edition of City Press.

Emails from the CR17 campaign, since dubbed #RamaphosaLeaks on social media, were first mentioned by News24 in a story which included names of potential donors, appeared to show the involvement of Public Enterprises Minister Pravin Gordhan in the campaign, and seemed to show that Ramaphosa’s claim that he was not involved in the running of the campaign or aware of its donors was at least partially untrue.

Then, in a Sunday Independent article titled “How the CR17 campaign funds were channelled”, it was reported that the publication had seen the campaign’s bank records, as well as emails and financial statements which identified the beneficiaries of the “R1 billion” campaign fund, who according to the story were “politicians, campaign managers, and strategists” who “earned millions for their roles in Ramaphosa’s” successful CR17 campaign for the ANC presidency.

READ MORE: Why Mkhwebane’s ‘rogue unit’ report is deeply flawed

The report alleged that some of Ramaphosa’s main funders were numerous wealthy businesspeople, including mining magnate Nicky Oppenheimer, who reportedly gave R10 million; Pick n Pay founder Raymond Ackerman, who gave R1 million; and eNCA founder, director and owner of Hosken Consolidated Investments Johnny Copelyn, who donated an alleged R2 million on behalf of the news channel. Former Absa CEO Maria Ramos was another alleged donor.

The article was co-written by a trio that included Piet Rampedi and Mzilikazi wa Afrika – two of the journalists behind now-discredited Sunday Times reports on the so-called Sars “rogue unit”. They both parted ways with the Sunday Times after these reports were retracted and apologised for when the media ombudsman found them to be “inaccurate, misleading, and unfair”.

(Compiled by Daniel Friedman)

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