Cape Town — Former president Thabo Mbeki met with top African National Congress (ANC) leaders at Luthuli House in Johannesburg yesterday. The meeting centred around a letter Mbeki had written to the party, lambasting it for the way in which it handled the news of Cyril Ramaphosa's game farm robbery at Phala Phala in Limpopo province in 2020.

The robbery which is rumoured to have been in the region of U.S.$4 million from the sale of game on the farm, went unreported to the police. The matter came to light after former intelligence boss Arthur Fraser, laid a charge against Ramaphosa, accusing him of concealing the crime from police and the South African Revenue Service. The president was also accused of enlisting the help of his presidential protection unit head to get the money back and keep the matter quiet, Rebecca Davis for Daily Maverick reported at the time.

Parliament voted not to adopt a report which would have led to the impeachment of President Cyril Ramaphosa. The vote, which was supposed to have taken place on December 6, 2022, had been postponed to December 13, 2022. The two decision-making bodies of South Africa's majority party African National Congress - the National Working Committee and the National Executive committee - rallied to support Ramaphosa, and reject the findings of the damaging report.

The ANC told public broadcaster SABC News that the meeting with Mbeki was "an opportunity to get guidance". "This is an opportunity for the leadership of the ANC to put their heads together to get council, to get wisdom but also to engage with our former president, and to come to certain conclusions," ANC spokesperson Mahlengi Bhengu-Motsiri said.

President Cyril Ramaphosa was not in attendance.