What constitutes paid work, and how this differs from dividends, emerged as a key issue in the Western Cape high court review of the Section 89 panel finding that President Cyril Ramaphosa had a case to answer over the Phala Phala saga. These questions come as the executive ethics law is under review.
The question of whether Ramaphosa's Phala Phala game and cattle farm business constituted paid work, which the Constitution, the Executive Ethics Act and code prohibit, or merely permissible business interests, is an important thread throughout the Phala Phala saga.
The Constitution, in Section 96, prohibits the President and his executive from undertaking "any other paid work". The Executive Ethics Act gives effect to this prohibition and extends it to premiers and MECs, while the executive ethics code says those in the executive "may not... receive remuneration for any work or service" beyond their executive functions.
In Thursday's court proceedings, advocate Kessler Perumalsamy for the African Transformation Movement (ATM), whose leader Vuyolwethu Zungula brought the impeachment motion in July 2022, argued the Section 89 panel report got it right on all four counts; it found Ramaphosa had a case to answer.
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Legal meaning of paid work
The money stolen from the Phala Phala game farm had to be accounted for, as Ramaphosa said he did not do paid work, the advocate said before Judge Mark Sher asked for the evidence that the Christmas 2020 sale of buffalo was a personal transaction, rather than part of a trading operation.
That brought the...
