DA welcomes probe by public protector into R500,000 Bosasa 'donation' to Ramaphosa

26 January 2019 - 12:22 By TimesLIVE
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Mmusi Maimane
Mmusi Maimane
Image: Mmusi Maimane via Twitter

The Democratic Alliance has welcomed the decision by the public protector to accede to a formal request from the party to investigate a R500,000 ‘donation’ President Cyril Ramaphosa allegedly received from controversial company Bosasa.   

At the same time, the DA reiterated its call for a full-scale independent inquiry - headed by a retired judge to be selected by the  chief justice - to fully investigate the Bosasa scandal, which it said now involved the president and his family.

“I welcome the decision by Public Protector Adv Busisiwe Mkhwebane to accede to my formal request for an investigation into whether President Cyril Ramaphosa misled parliament about the R500,000 ‘donation’ he received from Bosasa CEO Gavin Watson towards his campaign to be elected ANC president,” DA leader Mmusi Maimane said in a statement on Saturday.

“Adv Mkhwebane’s decision is an important reminder to President Ramaphosa – and his pals in the ANC – that no one is above the law,” Maimane added.

“Last year November, the president performed a spectacular about-turn and was forced to admit to the nation that his campaign received dirty money from Bosasa. In light of former Bosasa COO Angelo Agrizzi’s explosive testimony before the Zondo Commission over the past days, it is now imperative that we find out whether the president misled parliament and the nation.”

Maimane said the fact was that Ramaphosa had received R500,000 from a company that had been paying the ANC bribes to secure government tenders for almost two decades.

“He can no longer mislead the public into believing that ‘he did not know’. He is also on the record as having told Parliament that his son, Andile Ramaphosa, does lucrative paid work for Bosasa. All of this appears no different to every other bribe Bosasa paid to the ANC since 1999.”

The Bosasa revelations had shattered the myth that corruption in the ANC was simply a feature of Jacob Zuma and the Gupta family, Maimane said.

“A system of corruption that builds a wall between insiders and outsiders - the ‘haves’ and the ‘have nots’ - is in the very DNA of the ANC,” he said.


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