South Africa: Ramaphosa Bets His Presidency On Namibian Police Report

Funda ngesiZuluBy Anita Dangazele

Ramaphosa filed a new High Court application on Tuesday to have the Phala Phala impeachment report declared unlawful and thrown out.

He argues the panel never checked whether a Namibian police report and a suspect recording were lawfully obtained before being used as evidence.

Cyril Ramaphosa is betting that a confidential Namibian police document could unravel the entire impeachment case against him.

In a review application filed in the Western Cape High Court on Tuesday, Ramaphosa argued that the Section 89 panel which investigated him never tested whether its key evidence was lawfully obtained. If that evidence falls away, he says, so does the report built on it.

The report was compiled in 2022 by a panel led by former chief justice Sandile Ngcobo, alongside retired judge Thokozile Masipa and advocate Mahlape Sello. It investigated four charges against Ramaphosa linked to the theft of US$580,000 from his Phala Phala game farm in Bela-Bela, Limpopo, in February 2020. That money was worth around R9-million at the time.

Former spy boss Arthur Fraser blew open the case by laying criminal charges at the Rosebank police station in 2022. He submitted a confidential Namibian police report and an audio recording of a suspect interview to the panel.

Ramaphosa says neither should have been accepted without scrutiny.

"The crucial question is whether the report lawfully landed in Fraser's hands," he said in his court papers.

"The panel had a duty to ensure that any evidence before it is lawfully obtained or exclude it."

The panel found there was enough before it to suggest Ramaphosa may have committed serious violations of the Constitution. The ANC voted the report down in Parliament the following month.

This is not Ramaphosa's first attempt to kill the report. He went to the Constitutional Court in 2022 with the same argument. He lost.

Parliament is now preparing to establish an impeachment committee following a Constitutional Court ruling that compels it to act. The respondents in Tuesday's application have 15 days to say whether they will oppose it.

Read the original article on Scrolla.