Phala Phala case ‘a plot to block Cyril ’— Godongwana

● Finance minister Enoch Godongwana has come out in defence of President Cyril Ramaphosa, saying the case opened against him by former spy boss Arthur Fraser is part of a plot to block the president from seeking a second term as head of the ANC.

Ramaphosa has come under intense pressure from within the ANC to tell his side of the story about the burglary at his Phala Phala farm, first at last week’s national working committee meeting and then at a special national executive committee gathering on Thursday night.

He has refused to answer questions from the media on allegations made by Fraser that $4m (about R63m) was stolen from his farm on February 9 2020, that the president swept the matter under the carpet and allegedly bribed the perpetrators to silence them. This has prompted calls for Ramaphosa to fall on his sword five months before the ANC elects new leaders at its national conference.

In a move to forestall potentially adverse international reaction to the Phala Phala scandal, the Sunday Times understands that senior cabinet ministers, including Godongwana and human settlements minister Mmamoloko Kubayi, have been tasked with reassuring investors locally and internationally that the scandal is not a crisis and that the party will be able to deal with it.

The two are expected to undertake international trips in the coming week to speak to investors.

Godongwana told the Sunday Times calls for Ramaphosa to step aside were premature as there were no formal charges against the president.

“The policy of the ANC is that only a person who is charged steps aide. The president has not been charged. We can’t have a rule for the president and a different rule for others.”

Asked if Ramaphosa was living up to his promise of transparency by refusing to pub

licly answer questions related to the incident, Godongwana said the president was one of the most accountable leaders in SA’s history.

“He has co-operated with authorities. He is one president who made himself available whenever he was asked to do so. He appeared before the Zondo commission and the Human Rights Commission that probed the July riots,” he said.

“The charge [case opened by Fraser] is intended for him to step aside so that he’s unavailable for conference. This is done by people who want to win conference,” said Godongwana.

The first person to raise the Phala Phala matter was NWC member Tony Yengeni its meeting on Monday last week.

“Yengeni said the president must step down so that he can allow the process of investigation to continue without any interference or hindrance from him. And that the NWC must refer his case to the integrity committee and that the NWC must also refer his case to the ethics committee in parliament,” said a source who attended the meeting.

Insiders said that on Thursday former ministers Ngoako Ramatlhodi and Zweli Mkhize wanted the matter to be discussed by the NEC meeting, but were told it was not on the agenda as officials were yet to prepare a report.

ANC chair Gwede Mantashe confirmed that he told the virtual meeting the matter could not be discussed, but denied he shielded Ramaphosa.

“You see, I was chairing the meeting. I said ‘comrades, that issue is not on the agenda, we’re not going to discuss it’. I’m shielding nobody by doing that,” Mantashe said.

“When I run a meeting we have a special NEC focusing on a particular issue and we were meeting to discuss. I tried to force the meeting to focus on a specific issue that was on the agenda. That’s not shielding anybody.

“We called a meeting for a particular issue and we discussed that item for nine hours, so we couldn’t just pick and add everything else; then it would’ve taken us 14 hours.”

Asked when ANC officials would present their report on the Phala Phala burglary, Mantashe said the party had to await investigations by the Hawks, Sars and the Reserve Bank.

“We are clear in our minds that an exchange issue is a Sars issue and a Reserve Bank issue because the Reserve Bank must come with a finding on whether any laws were broken. The ANC has no capacity to do so. Sars also has to say if tax paid on that money. The ANC has no such capacity,” Mantashe said yesterday.

“So what do you want the report to say? It’s not even just about capacity: by law we [ANC] don’t investigate tax control, tax evasion.”

He said the ANC was monitoring the work of those institutions and the outcome would determine how it dealt with the matter.

Ramatlhodi refused to discuss what he said in the NEC meeting but told the Sunday Times he believes Ramaphosa should step aside.

“I can’t talk about NEC but I really think he should step aside. My view is that the rule applies across the board and he must step aside,” Ramatlhodi said. “Mkhize stepped aside. He must also step aside. You don’t want to create a special dispensation for the president, you must apply the rules across the board.”

He said the secretary-general’s office should take time to “explain to us how far it goes”.

“They decided to amend this step-aside thing before we were able to discuss it and then we’re hit with Phala Phala. So we need time to discuss [this] thing”.

He said there should be no leadership crisis if Ramaphosa steps aside as “there are rules which come into play. You don’t even have to call a special NGC [national general council], there are clear rules.”

Ramaphosa’s backers plan to tear into the ethical standing of those who are calling for his head as part of their fightback at the next NEC meeting.

An NEC member sympathetic to the president said they will argue that Mkhize, who faces allegations of corruption related to the Digital Vibes saga, has not stepped aside from his NEC position, and neither has Bathabile Dlamini, who was convicted of perjury.

“You honestly can’t tell us that Tony, Zweli and the likes can tell us about how we look out there in the public. Zweli may have been removed from his position as health minister but he has not stepped aside. He is still there in the NEC and in parliament. So what are they talking about?”

Ramaphosa’s allies have advised the president to remain silent and wait for Fraser to show whether he has any evidence to support his claims. His supporters say this is to prevent a situation where the president ends up incriminating himself.

But Ramaphosa’s rivals say he has a case to answer. An NEC member said Ramaphosa could have broken Reserve Bank laws, the executive ethics code and Section 96 of the constitution, which prohibits members of the cabinet from undertaking “any other paid work”.

“According to that section he is not allowed to conduct business. When he took over in 2018 he told us he was no longer a director of any company. But he told the Limpopo conference that he buys and sells animals.”